Gift Ideas
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MATURIN, Charles.
Melmoth the Wanderer: a Tale … Edinburgh, Archibald Constable and Company
London, Hurst, Robinson, and Co., 1820.
First edition, with excellent provenance, of what is often considered alongside Frankenstein as the supreme masterpiece of the Gothic genre.
£7500
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[WYNNE, John Huddlestone.]
The Child of Chance; or, the Adventures of Harry Hazard.
London, T. Hookham, ‘1796’ [recte 1786].
First edition of a very rare picaresque novel in the manner of Tom Jones. Though largely London-based, there are interludes in India (where Wynne had served two years) and the West Indies. Many of the tropes of Wynne’s earlier novel The Man of Honour are present – orphans, female duplicity,...
£3500
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WIELAND, Christoph Martin; William SOTHEBY, translator.
Oberon, a Poem …
London, Cadell and Davies, Edwards, Faulder, and Hatchard, 1798.
First octavo edition of Sotheby’s celebrated translation of Wieland’s epic, Oberon, in part based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream; there was also a large paper quarto edition for presentation.
£500
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[TOMKIS, Thomas.]
Lingua: or, the Combat of the Tongue, and the five Senses for Superiority. A pleasant Comoedie.
London, Nicholas Okes for Simon Waterson, 1617.
Third edition, rare, of this allegorical Cambridge play, perhaps the earliest academic drama to achieve popular success.
£3000
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ROHAN, Henri, Duke of; [Henry HUNT, translator].
A Treatise of the Interest of the Princes and States of Christendome....
London, Richard Hodgkinson, 1641.
First edition in England (and second in English) of this groundbreaking work on political interest and the balance of power by the leader of the Huguenots, this copy with hitherto unnoticed printing variants.
£1800
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[CHARLES II.]
RIVET, Jean. ‘Le favory du Ciel ou Meditation sur le pseaume cent un par Jean Rivet laisné Sainctongeois’.
[Caussade en Quercy, 1664.]
A fascinating manuscript meditation on Psalm 101, a text traditionally used as an exposition on princely authority in Protestant theology, with a long dedication ‘A Tres Puissant et Serenissime Roy Charle deuxiesme Roy de la grande Bretagne’.
£1850
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PRIOR, Matthew.
The Poetical Works … now first collected, with explanatory Notes, and memoirs of the Author, in two Volumes …...
Rivington and Sons, J. Dodsley [and five others], 1779.
A handsome copy of this collected edition of Prior, edited by Thomas Evans, inscribed on a front endpaper: ‘George Augusta Hill given him by Ladies Anne and Gertrude Fitz-Patrick, out of the Library of the late Earl of Upper Ossory Ampthill Park who died Feb 1st 1818’.
£500
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PORTER, [Jane].
Thaddeus of Warsaw. In four Volumes … by Miss Porter. The fifth Edition.
London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1809.
Fifth edition of Jane Porter’s famous first book. The book, which led to a friendship between Porter and General Kościuszko, quickly became a best-seller (a new edition every year to 1806, eleven by 1826). The ‘Advertisement to the Second Edition’, commented at her pleasure at ‘totally...
£500
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PORTER, [Jane].
Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney; with Remarks, by Miss Porter …
London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1807.
First edition, uncommon, of a collection of aphorisms and observations drawn from Sidney’s prose works, edited and with additional commentary by the novelist Jane Porter (1775–1850).
£600
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[PRAYERS.]
The New-Years-Gift, complete: in six Parts. Composed of Meditations and Prayers for every Day in the Week: with Devotions...
London, Henry Mortlock, 1700.
Unrecorded edition of a very popular collection of prayers and meditations, complete in six parts, bound for the pocket.
£1200
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KOTZEBUE, August Friedrich Ferdinand von.
Travels from Berlin, through Switzerland, to Paris, in the Year 1804 … Translated from...
London, Richard Phillips, 1804.
First edition in English, quickly translated from Kotzebue’s Erinnerungen aus Paris (September 1804). As the German title suggests, the Travels is in fact largely devoted to Paris, with lively observations on Napoleon, Madame Recamier, the Musée des monuments français and Musée...
£500
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KOTZEBUE, August Friedrich Ferdinand von.
The Guardian Angel. From the German … A Story for Youth.
London, J. Wright for Vernor and Hood, and J. Harris, 1802.
First edition in English (and the first separate edition in any language?) of Kotzebue’s novella ‘Der Schutzgeist’, not his later play of that title, but a short story published in Gottlieb Wilhelm Becker’s Erholungen (Recreations) in 1797, where Kotzebue claimed it was a based...
£650
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KOTZEBUE, August Friedrich Ferdinand von.
The Constant Lover, or William and Jeanette: a Tale, from the German … To which is...
London, John Bell, 1799.
First edition in English, rare, of ‘Geprüfte Liebe’, a romance first published in Kotzebue’s Die jüngsten Kinder meiner Laune (1793–7), and then published separately in 1799, prefaced here by a summary translation of his literary autobiography.
£1600
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KOTZEBUE, August Friedrich Ferdinand von.
The most remarkable Year in the Life of Augustus von Kotzebue; containing an Account...
London, Richard Phillips, 1802.
First edition in English of Kotzebue’s Das merkwürdigste Jahr meines Lebens (1801), an account of his surprise arrest at the Russian border in 1800 on suspicions of being a Jacobin, and his transport to Tobolsk in Siberia. With some royal flattery, Kotzebue won his freedom back from...
£500
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IRWIN, Eyles.
The Triumph of Innocence; an Ode. Written on the Deliverance of Maria Theresa Charlotte, Princess Royal of France,...
London, W. Bulmer for G. Nicol, 1796.
First and only edition, very rare, of this anti-Jacobin poem celebrating the release of Marie Thérèse of France (1778–1851), eldest child of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, from the Temple prison, where she had been held since 1792 as the rest of her family were gradually removed and executed.
£800
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SOPHOCLES; Ezra POUND, translator.
Women of Trachis. A Version by Ezra Pound.
London, Neville Spearman, [1956].
First edition of Pound’s version of Sophocles’ Trachiniae, inscribed by the editor Denis Goacher to Geoffrey Bridson (1910–1980), who had co-produced the play for BBC radio in April 1954.
£1000
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KEATS, John.
Endymion. A poetic romance … with engravings by John Buckland-Wright.
[London,] The Golden Cockerel Press, [1947].
No. 200 of 500 copies of the Golden Cockerel Endymion (the first 100 specially bound in full vellum), also found in brown buckram rather than red as here; Buckland-Wright’s greatest work and one of the most important Golden Cockerel publications, begun in 1943 but not completed until...
£1750
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FERDOWSĪ.
Shāhnāmah.
Tehran, Amir Kabir, AH 1350 [AD 1971].
A lavishly produced edition of the Shāhnāmah (or Shahnameh), rare in the dustjacket, one of a thousand copies printed to mark the 2500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire. Ferdowsi’s celebrated and vast epic poem provides a history of the kings of Persia from...
£4000
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BRIDGES, Robert.
Eros and Psyche, a Poem in XII Measures … with Wood-cuts from Designs by Edward Burne-Jones.
[Gregynog], The Gregynog Press, 1935.
One of 300 copies, one of the most beautiful works from the Gregynog Press, with illustrations after Burne-Jones, and a new typeface (used only in this volume) by Graily Hewitt.
£1500
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[BECKFORD, William.]
Vathek, conte arabe.
Paris, Poinçot; Chatellerault, P. J. B Guimbert, 1787.
Extremely rare, the only traced copy, of a reissue of the sheets of the first Paris edition with a provincially-printed cancel title adding to the imprint the imprimeur-libraire Pierre Jean Baptiste Guimbert, of Châtellerault. This is the rarest piece of Beckfordiana we have ever encountered,...
£3750