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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. DRYDEN, John.

    Eleonora: a Panegyrical Poem: dedicated to the Memory of the late Countess of Abingdon …

    London: Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1692.

    First edition. The countess had died in May 1691, but ‘betwixt ill health, some business, and many troubles’, publication of this eulogy was delayed until March 1692 (as the Lutrell copy is dated). The poem, commissioned by the Earl of Abingdon, praises the piety and charity of its subject, its somewhat...

    £275

  2. DRYDEN, John.

    Religio Laici or a Layman’s Faith. A Poem …

    London, Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1683.

    First edition, second issue (with a few minor corrections; Macdonald located only two copies of the first): ‘a defence of the Anglican position, which shows his singular power of arguing in verse’ (Leslie Stephen, DNB). The inspiration for the poem was the translation of Richard Simon’s Histoire...

    £400

  3. DUNCAN, Raymond. 

    A small archive of printed and manuscript material relating to, and printed by, the dancer and poet Raymond Duncan. 

    Paris, 1940s to 1970s. 

    The present archive includes:

    £1500

  4. [DUPONT DE NEMOURS, Pierre-Samuel and Konrad Engelbert OELSNER].

    Notice sur la vie et les écrits de M. Joël Barlow, Ministre...

    [Paris]: Smith [?for the author], 1813.

    First edition, limited to 500 copies; an association copy of this eulogy to America's National poet, Joel Barlow, gifted by his widow to Count Rumford. American businessman, diplomat, and poet Joel Barlow (1754–1812) studied at Yale, where he developed interests in poetry, moral and political...

    £600

  5. D’URFEY, Thomas.

    Wit and Mirth: or Pills to purge Melancholy; being a Collection of the best merry Ballads and Songs, old and...

    London: Printed by W. Pearson, for J. Tonson ... 1719 [-20].

    The first complete edition, second issue of volumes I-V with titles altered to the familiar Wit and Mirth from Songs Compleat, 1719 (a change at the time of the publication in 1720 of volume VI, which is always entitled Wit and Mirth).

    £2250

  6. D’URFEY, Thomas.

    The Progress of Honesty: or, a View of a Court and City. A Pindarique Poem …

    London: Printed for Joseph Hindmarsh … 1681.

    First edition of an allegorical poem inspired, like Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel, by the Exclusion Crisis of 1681. ‘Honesty’ describes to ‘Error’, ‘Faction’ and ‘Beauty’ the court of Charles II (‘Titus the Second … the joy of human kind’), and the malign effects of Treason...

    £300

  7. [D’URFEY, Thomas].

    Butler’s Ghost: or Hudibras. The Fourth Part. With Reflections upon these Times …

    London, Printed for Joseph Hindmarsh … 1682.

    First edition of D’Urfey’s sequel to Samuel Butler’s burlesque poem Hudibras, the most celebrated satire of the seventeenth century, published in three parts in 1663-78. Written in hudibrastic metre, the two cantos of Butler’s Ghost follow the progress of Butler’s eponymous hero from an interrupted...

    £325

  8. [D’URFEY, Thomas].

    Butler’s Ghost: or Hudibras. The Fourth Part. With Reflections upon these Times …

    London, Printed for Joseph Hindmarsh … 1682.

    First edition of D’Urfey’s sympathetic continuation of Samuel Butler’s burlesque Hudibras, the most celebrated satire of the seventeenth century, published in three parts in 1663-78. The two cantos of Butler’s Ghost follow the progress of Butler’s eponymous Presbyterian Knight from an interrupted...

    £500

  9. DURRELL, Lawrence.

    Collected Poems.

    London, Faber and Faber, [1960].

    First edition, inscribed ‘For Geoff from Larry Durrell 1962 / “too much tape [?]” Eliot’.

    £400

  10. ERLENBACH, Jean Jacques.

    Compliment de Congé en rimes francaises, a monsieur Ziegert, sur son depart pour Halle à l’université...

    Breslau, Charles Guillaume Grass, [1754].

    Charming and apparently unrecorded poem written on the occasion of the departure for the University of Halle of an unidentified Mr Ziegert by his disgruntled friend Johan Jakob Erlenbach (who, according to a footnote, did not expect his poem to be printed).

    £150

  11. FAGNANI, Giovanni Marco. 

    De bello Arriano libri sex. 

    Milan, heirs of Pacifico da Ponte and Giovanni Battista Piccaglia, 1604. 

    First and only edition of the sole published work by the Italian nobleman Giovanni Marco Fagnani (1524–1609), an epic poem recounting Ambrose of Milan’s campaign against local Arians in late fourth-century Lombardy. 

    £900

  12. FERRARI, Giovanni Francesco. 

    Le rime burlesche, sopra varii, et piacevoli soggetti; indrizzate à diversi nobili signori. 

    Venice, heirs of Melchior Sessa, 1570.

    First edition, rare, of the only work published by Giovanni Francesco Ferrari, a Renaissance court poet of whom little is known.  Most information is gleaned, or will be gleaned in the future, from these verses; for example, his attachment to the entourage of the Mantuan prelate Ippolito Capilupi...

    £1250

  13. FLETCHER, Giles, the younger.

    Christs Victorie, and Triumph in Heaven, and Earth, over, and after Death …

    Cambridge, Printed by C. Legge. 1610.

    First edition of an important poem, a ‘worthy link’ in the chain which connects Fletcher’s great master, Spenser, with his great successor, Milton (Hugh de Selincourt, CHEL). This is the first state, with a fleur-de-lis device on the title-pages – three copies are known with the title-pages reset...

    £3500

  14. [FORD, James, editor].

    The Suffolk Garland: or, a Collection of Poems, Songs, Tales, Ballads, Sonnets, and Elegies, legendary and...

    Ipswich: Printed and Sold by John Raw; Sold also by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown; and Rodd and Son, London. 1818

    First edition of a miscellany of verse, much of it ephemeral, selected by the antiquary James Ford (1770-1850), perpetual curate of St. Laurence, Ipswich. In the preface Ford provides an outline of the history of ballads, drolleries, and penny literature and of how they have been collected by Pepys and...

    £275

  15. [FRASER, William Augustus, Sir.]

    Poems by the Knight of Morar.

    London, Whittingham and Wilkins, 1867.

    First edition, privately printed, a presentation copy inscribed on the title-page ‘From the Author . Paris. 1867.’

    £350

  16. FREEMAN, Arthur.

    Catullus Carmen 17.6 and Other Mysteries. A Study in Editorial Conflict, Eccentricity, Forgery, and Restitution....

    London, The Author, 2020.

    This partly historical, partly philological essay offers a general account of the early preservation, post-medieval recovery, and Renaissance evolution of the text of Catullus, with specific reference to one speculative reading in Carmen 17 (‘De Colonia’), and certain humanist twists and forgeries...

    £15

  17. [FRIENDSHIP ALBUM.]

    Album of poetry and prose with watercolour illustrations.

    [London, c. 1824–1832.]

    An attractive nineteenth-century album collecting poems (many of Scottish, Irish, and Nonconformist interest) and hymns, along with several charming drawings in pencil and ink, with ties to several London families.

    £1200

  18. FROST, Robert.

    A collection of five Christmas Poems 1953, 1959, 1960, 1961 and 1963, all in the issues printed for distribution...

    1953-1963, see below.

    One more Brevity. New York, Spiral Press, 1953. Pp [12]; illustrations by Philip Grushkin; small stain to one page, else very good, stapled in the original wrappers, booklabel of D. G. Bridson, inscribed ‘To Geoffrey Bridson from Robert Frost after the pleasantest sort of encounter Dec 13...

    £2000

  19. GAY, John, and Gordon ROSS (illustrator).

    Rural Sports, together with the Birth of the Squire and the Hound and the...

    New York, William Edwin Rudge, 1930.

    Limited edition, numbered 94 of 200 copies for sale, signed by the artist. A handsome edition with hand-coloured illustrations by the sporting watercolourist Gordon Ross (1873–1946).

    £160

  20. [GOETHE.] 

    REICHARDT, Johann Friedrich.  Goethe’s Lieder, Oden, Balladen und Romanzen mit Musik von J.F. Reichardt.  Erste...

    Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, [1809–11]. 

    Very rare first complete edition of Reichardt’s musical settings of Goethe’s poetry, comprising 128 settings of which thirty-nine appear here for the first time. 

    £6500