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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POEMS ON AFFAIRS OF STATE:
from the Time of Oliver Cromwell, to the Abdication of K. James the Second. Written by the greatest...
Printed in the Year 1702
Fourth edition of this popular collection of witty verse and political satire, with the second edition of State-Poems continued (1697). Much of the poetry collected here was initially circulated in manuscript because of its political subject matter (which includes the Dutch wars, the Popish Plot, and...
£425
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[POETRY.]
‘Trattato della [poesia Toscana]’.
[Asti?, 1780-1782.]
A manuscript treatise on the method of composing poetry in Italian, with numerous examples from renowned authors and eight apparently unpublished poems about horse-racing, with references to Arabian, Sardinian, English, and African horses, as well as to a firework display.
£750
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[POETRY.]
‘Récueil de differentes pieces de vers, et chansons. A l’usage de Madame la Comtesse de Lichtervelde née Comtesse...
[Belgium, 1777 and later].
An interesting commonplace of verses, songs, madrigals, epigrams, carols, and fables, many of which are apparently unpublished, compiled for the use of Albertine de Cassina (1749–1816), Comtesse de Wonsheim, who married Charles de Lichtervelde (1741–1803) in 1769.
£750
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[POPE, Alexander].
The New Dunciad: as it was Found in the Year 1741. With the Illustrations of Scriblerus, and Notes Variorum.
London: Printed for T. Cooper ... 1742.
First edition. This is the first printing of Book IV of the Dunciad. Having carried satire to the brink of prosecution, Pope retired into four years of silence, broken in 1742. A reference to Colley Cibber in line 316 inaugurated Pope’s last literary quarrel, and led to the revision of the...
£750
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POPE, Alexander.
Of false Taste. An Epistle to the right honourable Richard Earl of Burlington. Occasion’d by his publishing...
London: Printed for L. Gilliver … 1731 [1732].
1. Third edition of Of false Taste, published on 15 January 1732, adding Pope’s long letter to Burlington in reply to ‘the clamour rais’d about this epistle’. This is the first of three issues, with the misprint ‘Cielings’ on p. 11. Griffith 267; Foxon P912.
£850
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POPE, Alexander.
The Works … Vol. I [–VI]. With explanatory Notes and Additions never before printed.
London, Printed for B. Lintot, 1736 [Vol. II. Printed for L. Gilliver 1735; Vol. III. Printed for H. Lintot, 1736; Vol. IV. Printed...
A fine set of the bibliographically complicated small octavo Works, including the scarce supplementary Vol II. Part II.
£1750
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POPE, Alexander.
Windsor-Forest. To the Right Honourable George Lord Lansdown …
London: Printed for Bernard Lintott … 1713.
First edition of Pope’s second separately published poem, preceded by An Essay on Criticism in 1711. Written in the tradition that young poets begin with pastoral verse, Windsor-Forest, with its epigraph from Virgil’s Eclogues, was the poem that first won Swift’s regard and...
£2750
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POPE, Alexander.
The Dunciad. With Notes variorum, and the Prologomena of Scriblerus. The second Edition, with some Additional Notes.
London: Printed for Lawton Gilliver … 1729.
‘Second’ octavo edition, revised. This is Griffith’s variant d, with an extra unpaginated leaf of terminal errata (printed on the same half-sheet as the cancel P3).
£450
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POPE, Alexander.
The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, with his last Corrections, Additions, and Improvements, in four Volumes,...
London, ‘printed under the direction of J. Bell, British Library, Strand, bookseller to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales,’ 1787...
A good set of Pope’s works, printed for inclusion in Bell’s The Poets of Great Britain. Initially imported from Edinburgh and issued with new titles, Bell’s Poets of Great Britain was intended to provide attractive and portable works of British poets ‘from Chaucer to Churchill’,...
£175
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POPE, Alexander.
The Temple of Fame: a Vision … London: Printed for Bernard Lintot … 1715.
London: Printed for Bernard Lintot … 1715.
First edition. A modernized version of Chaucer’s Hous of Fame, for which Lintot paid Pope £32 5s. Perhaps Lintot was hoping to arouse interest in the rather expensive new edition of Chaucer which is advertised here at 30 s. in sheets. Queen Anne’s licence to Urry is dated 20 July 1714, and the Proposals...
£350
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POPE, Alexander.
Letters of Mr Alexander Pope, and several of his Friends.
London: Printed by J. Wright for J. Knapton … L. Gilliver … J. Brindley … and R. Dodsley … 1737.
First folio edition, large paper issue, preceded by a subscribers’ edition in quarto, of the first ‘official’ version of Pope’s letters.
£1500
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[POUND.]
Ezra Pound at Seventy.
[New York, New Directions, 1955.]
A small celebratory booklet printing tributes by Auden, Cummings, Eliot, Hemingway (‘Will gladly pay tribute to Ezra but what I would like to do is get him the hell out of St. Elizabeth’s’), Archibald Macleish, Jose de Pina Martins, Marianne Moore, Norman Pearson, Spender, and Edith Sitwell.
£30
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POUND, Ezra.
The Letters … 1907-1941. Edited by D. D. Paige
… London, Faber & Faber, [1951].
First English edition, an association copy.
£150
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POUND, Ezra.
The Classic Anthology defined by Confucius.
London, Faber & Faber, 1955.
First English edition, first printing, comprising sheets of the Harvard University Press edition (1954) with a cancel Faber title-page.
£175
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POUND, Ezra.
Quia Pauper amavi.
London, The Egoist Ltd, [1919].
First edition, one of 500 ordinary copies (there were also 100 signed copies on handmade paper’, inscribed ‘Bridson’s copy / 11 Ap ’59 / Ezra Pound’. This work contained the first English publication of Cantos I–III, not printed in that order.
£1750
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POUND, Ezra.
The Literary Essays … Edited with an Introduction by T. S.
Eliot. London, Faber & Faber, [1954].
First edition, first impression.
£75
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[POUND, Ezra.]
Agenda. Twenty-first Anniversary Ezra Pound Special Issue.
London, Agenda Editions, 1980.
Reprinting a number of works by Pound alongside criticism. Bridson’s article ‘Italian Painting in the Cantos’, one of his last publications, appears on pp. 210-217.
£75
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POUND, Ezra.
Cantos 110–116 …
printed & published by the Fuck You / press at a secret location in the lower east side, New York City, USA, 1967.
Unauthorised edition (unsurprisingly), no. 261 of 300 copies. The contents are extracts and include a number of apparently unidentified lines; this piracy forced the publication of Drafts and Fragment of Cantos CX–CXVII (1969).
£150
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POUND, Ezra, and Ernest FENELLOSA.
Introduzione ai Nô, con un drama in un atto di Motokiyo: Kagekiyo.
Milan, All’insegna del pesce d’oro [Scheiwiller], [1958].
Third edition, translations of Pound’s ‘Introduction’ and one play from Certain Noble Plays of Japan by his daughter Mary de Rachewiltz. This third edition added ‘Un intervallo di 40 anni’ by Pound, dated November 1958.
£30