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  1. HAY, William.

    Mount Caburn. A Poem. Humbly inscribed to Her Grace the Dutchess of Newcastle …

    London: Printed for J. Stagg … 1730.

    First edition. Hay’s only original poetic composition, Mount Caburn is a celebration of his native Sussex, historical, antiquarian and archaeological, as viewed from a hill fort on the South Downs near Lewes. The poem is dedicated to Henrietta Pelham-Holles, wife of the secretary of state, hinting...

    £375

  2. HAZLITT, William.

    Conversations of James Northcote, Esq., R.A. …

    London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley … 1830.

    First edition of Hazlitt’s final book, an inflammatory collection of gossip published just weeks before his death. ‘All the ill-nature in the book is Northcote’s; and all, or almost all, the talent’s, Hazlitt’s’ (Examiner, May 1833).

    £200

  3. HAZLITT, William.

    Conversations of James Northcote, Esq., R.A. …

    London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley … 1830.

    First edition of Hazlitt’s final book, an inflammatory collection of gossip published just weeks before his death. ‘All the ill-nature in the book is Northcote’s; and all, or almost all, the talent, Hazlitt’s’ (Examiner, May 1833).

    £250

  4. HEADLEY, Henry, editor.

    Select Beauties of ancient English Poetry …

    London, Printed for T. Cadell … 1787.

    First edition. This important miscellany – which would have been continued had not the young editor died in 1788 at the age of twenty-three – explores some of the byways of Elizabethan and early Stuart poetry. After a long introductory appreciation with biographical sketches of the poets, the verse...

    £675

  5. HILL, Richard, Sir.

    Logica Wesleiensis: or, the Farrago double distilled. With an heroic Poem in Praise of Mr. John Wesley …

    London: Printed for E. and C. Dilly … J. Matthews … and W. Harris … 1773.

    First and only edition, a somewhat eccentric reproof of Wesley’s increasingly strident attacks on Calvinism (and on Hill himself).

    £575

  6. HILL, Rowland.

    Journal of a Tour through the North of England and Parts of Scotland. With Remarks on the present State of the established...

    London: Printed by T. Gillet … and sold at Surr[e]y Chapel; also by T. Chapman [and seven others in London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow]. 1799

    First edition, an account of a Scottish tour conducted in July –September 1798 by the eccentric evangelical preacher Rowland Hill, followed by lengthy remarks on the Scottish church in a letter to the Baptist minister James Haldane. There is another issue with the title Journal through the North...

    £325

  7. [HILL, ‘Sir’ John].

    A Night Scene at Ranelagh on Wednesday 6th of May 1752. Thus I bore my point; six rogues in buckram let...

    [London], May 29 Publish’d … by H. Carpenter … [1752]

    Sole edition. The self-styled ‘Sir’ John Hill, sometime a physician and an actor, is best known for the ‘Paper War’ in 1751-2 between his ‘Inspector’ columns in the London Daily Journal and Fielding’s Covent-Garden Journal. It began in good humour but soon turned to real antagonism...

    £650

  8. HOLE, Richard.

    Remarks on the Arabian Nights’ Entertainment; in which the Origin of Sinbad’s Voyages, and other oriental Fictions,...

    London: Printed for T. Cadell, Junior, and W. Davies, Successors to Mr. Cadell … 1797.

    First edition of a whimsical but erudite treatise ‘first read at the meeting of a Literary Society in Exeter’, where members included Richard Polwhele. After initial scepticism, Hole’s research led him to conclude the narratives had a basis in fact. Hole went on to write a parallel work on Homer,...

    £650

  9. JEFFERIES, Richard.

    Hodge and his Masters …

    London, Smith, Elder, & Co. … 1880.

    First edition, an influential volume of sketches of rural life, collected from Jefferies’ articles in the Wiltshire and Gloucestershire Standard. Jefferies (1848-1887) had published his first novel The Scarlet Shawl in 1874, after some years as a rural newspaperman; with Hodge and his Masters...

    £450

  10. [JEFFREYS, George, first Baron Jeffreys].

    The Life and Character of the late Lord Chancellor Jefferys [sic] ...

    London: Printed by A. Moore ... 1725.

    First edition of an uncomplimentary life of the notorious Judge Jeffreys, who presided at the trial of Titus Oates. The author, according to the introduction, was a ‘Practicer at the Bar’ recently deceased, who had lived to a good age and was ‘well acquainted with all the Chancellor’s Proceedings,...

    £400

  11. JENKINS, Edward.

    The Devil’s Chain … Twentieth Thousand. With twelve Illustrations by Barnard and Thomson.

    William Mullan & Son … London … Belfast, 1877.

    A reissue of the illustrated edition from a different publishing house.

    £100

  12. JENKINS, Edward.

    The Devil’s Chain … Twenty-sixth Thousand. With twelve Illustrations by Barnard and Thomson.

    William Mullan & Son … London … Belfast, 1877.

    25th Thousand, according to the binding, but ‘Twenty-sixth Thousand’ on the title-page.

    £100

  13. [JOHNSON, Charles].

    Caelia: or, the perjur’d Lover. A Play. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, by His Majesty’s...

    London: Printed for J. Watts … 1733.

    First edition. Caelia, Johnson’s last theatrical production, is an attack on the fashionable libertinism of the day. As the Preface explains, however, he refused to take Barton Booth’s advice and expunge the vivid brothel scenes, and a fastidious audience answered with their pockets. The play,...

    £200

  14. JOURNEY TO EMMAUS (A).

    A sacred Dialogue ...

    Dublin: Printed and sold by Oliver Nelson ... 1751.

    First edition, dedicated to Frederick, Prince of Wales, as Chancellor of Trinity College.

    £650

  15. KETT, Henry.

    The Flowers of Wit, or a Choice Collection of Bon Mots, both antient and modern; with biographical and critical Remarks...

    London: Printed for Lackington, Allen, and Co. … at the Weybridge Press, by S. Hamilton. 1814.

    First edition, scarce, of a compilation of witty anecdotes and clever ripostes ordered alphabetically by author (including Cervantes, Queen Elizabeth, Samuel Johnson, ‘The Spartans’, Swift, Voltaire), and then by subject, with an appendix of ‘Puns’ and ‘Bulls’.

    £150

  16. KINNAIRD, Douglas.

    The Merchant of Bruges; or, Beggar’s Bush. With considerable Alterations and Additions. Now performing, with...

    London: Printed for Whittingham and Arliss ... 1815

    First edition of the only literary work by the intimate friend and banker of Lord Byron, who dedicated Hebrew Melodies to him in 1815. The play was produced at Drury Lane where both served on the Committee, dedicated to Lady Caroline Lamb’s brother-in-law (who contributed three songs), and has...

    £250

  17. [LANDOR, Walter Savage].

    Count Julian: a Tragedy.

    London: Printed for John Murray … by James Moyes … 1812.

    First edition of Landor’s first play, unacted, but a succès d’éstime, published in ‘a small edition’ (Oxford DNB). The episode in Spanish history which it treats – the vengeance taken by Don Julián, 8th-century ruler of Ceuta, against Roderigo, King of the Goths, who has dishonoured...

    £450

  18. [LANGHORNE, John].

    Letters supposed to have passed between M. de St. Evremond and Mr. Waller. Now first collected and published....

    London: Printed in the Year, 1770.

    Unacknowledged second edition; first published in two volumes in 1769. These supposed letters between the poet Edmund Waller and his contemporary, the French essayist Saint-Evremond are in fact by the poet and translator John Langhorne; they range widely over literary matters, including anecdotes about...

    £175

  19. LE SAGE, Alain René.

    The History of Vanillo Gonzales, surnamed the merry Batchelor. In two Volumes. From the French …

    London: Printed for G. G. and J. Robinson … 1797

    First complete translation of Le Sage’s Histoire d’Estevanille Gonzalez, surnommé le garcon de bonne humeur (1734), itself a loose French adaptation of Vida y hechos de Estebanillo Gonzalez (1646), preserving only a few episodes of the Spanish original. Authorship of Vida y hechos...

    £1250

  20. LEE, Henry.

    [Cover title:] The White Whale …

    London, R. K. Burt & Co. … 1878.

    First edition, an account of the white Beluga whale by Henry Lee of the Royal Aquarium in Brighton, specifically of the first such whale successfully transported to England, exhibited for four days in 1877 before its death from pneumonia; and of four further whales transported the following year....

    £225