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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TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord.
Locksley Hall Sixty Years after etc.
London: Macmillan and Co. … 1886.
First edition. Wise, Tennyson 156; Tinker 2098.
£60
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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THEOCRITUS et al.
Θεοκριτου, Μοσκου, Βιονις, Σιμμιου, τα ευρισκομενα. Theocriti, Moschi,...
[Heidelberg,] Commelin, 1604.
Second Heinsius edition of the works of Theocritus, paired as often with the poems of Moschus, Bion, and Simmias of Rhodes. It is ‘preferable’ to the first edition of 1603, which Heinsius tried to suppress, and is ‘in fact, a very excellent edition’, with ‘learned, sagacious, and ingenious’...
£850
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THOMAS, Dylan.
Under Milk Wood. A Play for Voices …
London, J.M. Dent & Sons, 1954.
First edition, first impression, our copy from the library of BBC radio producer D.G. Bridson, with a loosely inserted stereotype letter from the poet John Berryman about the last days and the death of Dylan Thomas.
£1500
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TIBULLUS.
Albius Tibullus, eques Romanus; et in eum Jo. Antonii Vulpii philologi ac rhetoris in gymnasio Patavino novus commentarius...
Padua, Giuseppe Comino, 1749.
An important edition of Tibullus’ love poems, with the commentary of Giovanni Antonio Volpi, who had founded the Libreria Cominiana along with his brother and the engraver Giuseppe Comino in 1717. Volpi had published a well-received edition of the standard tripos of Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius...
£250
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TIBULLUS.
Albius Tibullus, eques Romanus; et in eum Jo. Antonii Vulpii philologi ac rhetoris in gymnasio Patavino novus commentarius...
Padua, Giuseppe Comino, 1749.
An important edition of Tibullus’ love poems, with the commentary of Giovanni Antonio Volpi, who had founded the Libreria Cominiana along with his brother and the engraver Giuseppe Comino in 1717. Volpi had published a well-received edition of the standard tripos of Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius...
£250
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TIBULLUS. James GRAINGER, translator.
A Poetical Translation of the Elegies of Tibullus; and of the Poems of Sulpicia.
With the original Text, and Notes critical and explanatory … London, A. Millar, 1759.
First edition of this translation, with notes, by James Grainger (1722–1766), an army surgeon who had, unusually, turned to the pen to supplement his income from medical work.
£300
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TREVLYN GRIEVE, Valda.
High Death.
Falkland, K.D. Duval, 1970.
1 of 100 copies, inscribed ‘with affection and some embarrassment Valda’.
£75
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[TWISS, Horace].
Posthumous Parodies and other Pieces, composed by several of our most celebrated Poets, but not published in any...
London: Printed for John Miller. 1814.
First edition. Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope and Johnson are among the poets parodied.
£150
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VERLAINE, Paul, and Léon LEBÈGUE (illustrator).
Fêtes gallantes.
Paris, F. Ferroud for the Librairie des Amateurs, 30 July 1913.
Limited edition on vélin teinté d’Arches, numbered 430 of 500 copies, with etchings by Lebègue. First published in 1869, Verlaine’s Fêtes gallantes are here exquisitely printed and illustrated by Léon Lebègue (1863 – 1944) and finely bound by Flammarion.
£750
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[VETTORI, Antonio].
Sferza poetica contro i costumi d’oggidi. Del D.A.V. mantovano frà gli Arcadi di Roma Oribaste Didimense....
[Colophon]: Si vende in Fierra di Venezia da Domenico Pompeati, 1777.
Uncommon collection of sonnets musing on contemporary vices, seemingly the only published work by the Mantua poet, and member of the Roman Arcadi, Antonio Vettori. Divided into two parts, the collection contains 28 sonnets, each with accompanying notes, on subjects including the theatre, games, women,...
£350
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[VIRGIL.] RAMUS, Petrus (Pierre de la RAMÉE).
...
Paris, André Wechel, 1564.
Second editions of Ramus’s extensive commentaries on Virgil’s two poems on country life, written in reaction to the dry doctrines of several French schools who based their teaching of nature on Aristotle’s Physics. Ramus wanted to keep in contact with the concrete realities of nature...
£950
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WALLER, Edmund.
Poems, &c. written by Mr. Ed. Waller … and printed by a Copy of his own Hand-Writing. All the lyrick Poems...
London, Printed by I. N. for Hu. Mosley … 1645.
Second (but first licensed) edition of Waller’s first and most important collection, published while he was in exile, and shortly preceded by an unlicensed volume, Workes (London, Thomas Walkley, 1645) (Wing W 495) – ‘an adulterate Copy, surreptitiously and illegally imprinted, to...
£850
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[WALSH, William.]
A Funeral Elegy upon the Death of the Queen. Addrest to the Marquess of Normanby.
London, Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1695.
First edition of Walsh’s elegy on the death of Queen Mary II, the very rare first issue without the author’s name on the title-page. The second issue replaces a thick rule on the title-page with Walsh’s name, and adds two thick rules to the final page – this latter setting is also used...
£350
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WALTON, Izaac.
The Lives of Dr John Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Mr Richard Hooker, Mr George Herbert … to which are added some Letters...
London, printed by Tho. Newcomb for Richard Marriott … 1670.
First collected edition of Walton’s celebrated lives of poets and divines. ‘If its rarity was as great as its merit it would be one of the most coveted books of the period’ (Pforzheimer). The biography of Wotton was published as part of Reliquiae Wottonianae (1651); Walton’s life of Donne first...
£850
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WAPPEROM, Jacobus Joannes.
Gezangen door J.J. Wapperom.
The Hague, 1805.
Very rare collection of songs by the Dutch notary and poet Wapperom (1763–1822), one of only a small number of copies produced, decorated by the author himself and distributed among his friends and family.
£675