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.
-
BARONE, Giuseppe.
IA-Z Pam, le baton du muet, (traduit du chinois)... extrait du muséon.
Louvain, Ch. Peeters, 1882.
First separate edition, rare (apparently one other copy known), almost certainly printed for presentation, of this transliteration of a Chinese play with parallel French translation, which first appeared in the French journal Muséon. Barone’s article seeks to introduce a French audience to the great...
£250
-
[BERKENHOUT, John].
Clavis anglica Linguæ botanicæ; or, a botanical Lexicon; in which the Terms of Botany, particularly those...
London: Printed for the Author. Sold by T. Becket, and A. de Hondt … and Mess. Hawes, Clarke, and Collins … 1764.
First edition, dedicated to John Hope of the University of Edinburgh, and written with the assistance of Arthur Lee of Virginia, winner of the Hope Medal in 1763.
£325
-
BOLZANIO, Urbano or URBANUS BELLUNENSIS.
Institutionum in linguam Graecam grammaticarum, libri duo …
Basel, Johann Walder, September 1535.
Basel edition of this popular grammar commissioned and first published by Aldus in 1497. Bolzanio’s full exploration of the Greek language was the first book in which the principles of Greek grammar were explained in Latin – after the publication of the all-Greek grammar of Constantinus Lascaris....
£2000
-
BREREWOOD, Edward.
Enquiries touching the Diversity of Languages, and Religions through the cheife Parts of the World …
London, Printed [by Eliot’s Court Press] for John Bill, 1614.
First edition. Brerewood, professor of astronomy at Gresham College, was a scholar in many fields who published nothing in his own lifetime (he died in 1613). Enquiries, seen through the press by a nephew, explores the spread of ancient, eastern, and modern languages, discusses the...
£3000
-
COMIDAS DE CARBOGNANO, Cosimo.
Primi principi della gramatica Turca ad uso dei missionari apostolici di Costantinopoli ...
Rome, stamperia della Sac. Congr. di Prop. Fide, 1794.
The first complete Ottoman Turkish grammar published in Italian, compiled by the Catholic Armenian dragoman Cosimo Comidas de Carbognano (translator to Count de Ludolf, minister of the Two Sicilies to the Ottoman Porte in the late eighteenth century) and published by the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda...
£1500
-
ERASMUS, Desiderius.
Collectanea adagiorum.
[(Colophon:) Strasbourg, Matthias Schürer, 1519.]
Intensely annotated copy of a lifetime edition of Erasmus’ repository of Greek and Latin proverbs. The first version of the Adagia, containing about eight hundred maxims, had been published in 1500. Erasmus continued to add to his thesaurus for over thirty years, the success of this...
£5850
-
FERRARI, Giovanni Francesco.
Le rime burlesche, sopra varii, et piacevoli soggetti; indrizzate à diversi nobili signori.
Venice, heirs of Melchior Sessa, 1570.
First edition of the only work published by Giovanni Francesco Ferrari (d. 1588?), a Renaissance court poet of whom little is known, including poems in macaronic Spanish, several Italian dialects, and in lingua zerga, or furbesco, derived from the jargon of criminals.
£1250
-
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
-
HARRIS, James.
Three Treatises the first concerning Art the second concerning music painting and poetry the third concerning happiness...
London, John Nourse and Paul Vaillant, 1765.
Presentation copies, inscribed ‘From the Author’, of the revised second editions of these two works on art and language by the philosopher and latterly politician James Harris.
£600
-
HENNEQUIN, Pierre.
Nouveau cours de rhétorique, à l’usage de la jeunesse des deux sexes; dédié à sa Majesté l’Impératrice...
Moscow, Auguste Semen, 1818.
Only edition, very uncommon, of this guide to rhetoric by the Moscow-based French grammarian Pierre Hennequin (1772–1849), explicitly designed for both sexes and dedicated to the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna (1759–1828).
£950
-
[LEXICON.] [ALENIUS, Arnoldus, i.e. Arnout van EYNDHOUTS.]
Lexicon Graecolatinum post omnes hactenus editiones maxima iam...
Venice, Alessandro Brucioli and brothers [i.e. Antonio and Francesco Brucioli], 1546.
First edition of the Lexicon edited by the Dutch humanist and poet Arnout van Eyndhouts, or Arnoud de Lens, known as Arnoldus Alenius. Alenius’s formation took place in Paris, then Ferrara and Bologna. His proficiency as a Greek scholar earned him the post of librarian to the Spanish ambassador...
£2000
-
LIPSIUS, Justus.
De amphitheatro liber. In quo forma ipsa loci expressa, et ratio spectandi. Cum aeneis figuris.
Antwerp [i.e. Leiden], Christophe Plantin, 1585.
Two works by the great Flemish humanist and philologist Justus Lipsius (1547–1606), on amphitheatres and on Latin pronunciation.
£950
-
MACFARLANE, Patrick.
A new and copious English and Gaelic Vocabulary, with the different Parts of Speech; in alphabetical Order....
Edinburgh: Printed [by R. Menzies] for the Author, and Sold by A. Constable and Co. Edinburgh. 1815.
First edition of this early English-Gaelic dictionary. The English-Gaelic Vocabulary was published alone, as here, at 5s.6d., or together with the Gaelic-English part at 12s.6d. The Gaelic scholar complied it because the ‘want of an English and Gaelic Vocabulary has long been a desideratum...
£175
-
[MAUNDER, Samuel.]
[Engraved title: The Little Linguist, being a compendious Introduction to English Philology] The miniature English...
[(Engraved title:) London, Printed for the Author], [c. 1851?].
A delightful and scarce miniature guide to English grammar, touching also on foreign languages and demographics, well-preserved in its bright publishers binding.
£350
-
MORI, Ascanio de’.
Giuoco piacevole.
Mantua, Giacomo Ruffinello, 1575.
First edition of an uncommon Renaissance collection of tales in prose and verse, set in the Lombard city of Brescia during the Carnival of the ‘prosperous and peaceful’ year 1566, employing the narrative frame canonised by Boccaccio in the Decameron, though with pointedly opposed features.
£950
-
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
-
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
-
PIOZZI, Hester Lynch.
British Synonymy; or, an Attempt at regulating the Choice of Words in familiar Conversation. Inscribed, with...
London: Printed for G. G. and J. Robinson … 1794.
First edition of a fascinating collection of short essays on synonyms, intended as a help to her husband and his foreign friends. Mrs. Piozzi began work on her Synonymy in early 1792, and by August was hard at the grindstone: ‘ten pages o’ Day copying, besides a little Composition now and...
£950
-
PROPERTIUS; Oliffe Legh RICHMOND, editor.
Sexti Properti quae supersunt opera, edidit novoque adparatu critico instruxit...
Cambridge, University Press, 1928.
First edition of Richmond’s controversial Propertius, A. F. Scholfield’s copy, with three letters from the editor.
£400
-
RENAN, Ernest (1823-1892), French philologist and philosopher.
A collection of 26 autograph letters and notes signed, with one...
Paris and Sèvres, 1853-1889 (and undated).
A fine collection of letters from Renan, providing an insight into the breadth of his academic pursuits, his publications, his contacts in France and abroad, and his personality.
£500