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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HOLCROFT, Thomas.
The Family Picture; or, domestic Dialogues on amiable and interesting Subjects: illustrated by Histories, Allegories,...
London: Printed for Lockyer Davis … Printer to the Royal Society. 1783
First edition of an early work by the radical playwright and novelist Thomas Holcroft. The Egerton family gather in the library every evening to tell stories for their mutual instruction and amusement. The novel takes the form of twenty dialogues, and each includes a number of shorter tales. Several...
£950
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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
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HOMER; Alexander POPE, translator.
The Odyssey of Homer. Translated by Alexander Pope, Esq. To which is added, The...
London, Baynes & Son (and others) [upper cover: ‘Printed for The Proprietors of the English Classics, by J. F. Dove, St. John’s Square’],...
Pocket-sized edition of Pope’s translations of the Odyssey and the Batrachomyomachia, with a fine frontispiece and additional title engraved by Charles Rolls; a very well-preserved copy in the original printed boards.
£125
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HOMER, and Alexander POPE (translator).
Homer’s Odyssey, translated by Alexander Pope, in two volumes.
London, John Bell, 1774.
First and only Bell edition of Pope’s Odyssey, extremely rare. Pope’s immensely popular version of the Odyssey, penned in collaboration with William Broome and Elijah Fenton, was first published by Bernard Lintot in 1726. The work brought Pope around £5600 in profits, and...
£450
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HOOKER, Richard.
Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, eight Bookes [Bound with:] Certayne Divine Tractates … London, Printed...
… London: Printed by Will. Stansby, and are to be sold by Mat. Lownes … 1617.
Fourth edition, first issue, of the Preface and Books 1-4 (first published in 1593), third edition of Book 5 (first published in 1597), bound here with the third edition of ‘Certayne Divine Tractates’ (1631), issued with a 1622 general title-page (rather than the usual 1632).
£650
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HORACE.
Opera omnia.
Paris, [Didot fils for] A. Mesnier, 1828.
A scarce miniature edition of Horace’s works, printed by Didot fils with type cut by Henri Didot.
£400
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HORACE; James TATE (editor).
Horatius restitutus: or the books of Horace arranged in chronological order according...
Smith for J. & J.J. Deighton, 1832.
First edition of this attempt to arrange the books of Horace in chronological order by the classical scholar and master of Richmond School, James Tate (1771–1843), this copy presented by him to Thomas Gaisford (1779–1855), classicist, Dean of Christ Church Oxford, Regius Professor of Greek,...
£150
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HUGHES, John.
Poems on several Occasions. With some select Essays in Prose. In two Volumes …
London: Printed for J. Tonson and J. Watts. 1735.
First edition of the principal collection of the author’s works, published posthumously and edited, with a long biographical preface, by his brother-in-law, William Duncombe. John Hughes (1677–1720) was educated at a dissenting academy where Isaac Watts was his contemporary. From an early...
£850
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HUGHES, Ted.
T.S. Eliot: A Tribute by the Poet Laureate.
[London,] ‘Privately Printed by [the Salient Seedling for] Faber and Faber’, [August 1987].
A privately printed tribute to T.S. Eliot, limited to 250 copies signed by Ted Hughes. The text comprises an address given by Hughes on 26 September 1986, at the unveiling of Eliot’s blue plaque at Kensington Court Gardens.
£175
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IRVING, Washington, and Felix DARLEY (illustrator).
Rip van Winkle; a posthumous Writing of Diedrich Knickerbocker...
London: Joseph Cundall … 1850.
First English edition, rare, first published as Illustrations of Rip Van Winkle (New York, 1848) in oblong folio. For this more compact English edition the publisher and early photographic entrepreneur Joseph Cundall made an early use of photography: ‘The present illustrations have been reduced...
£350
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ISHERWOOD, Christopher.
Berlin Stories.
New York: New Directions, [1945].
First American edition to combine the two Berlin novels, originally published by the Hogarth Press as Mr Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin, in 1935 and 1939 respectively.
£150
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JACOMB, Charles Ernest.
And a new earth. A romance.
London, George Routledge & Sons, 1926.
First edition. A post-apocalyptic fantasy novel relating the history of a utopian island that survived a ‘second flood’ in 1958, which destroyed the world’s civilization and reduced the human population to just 10,000. The island was re-discovered by the New World Fleet in 2832, 872 years after...
£75
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JACQUEMOT, Jean.
Variorum poematium liber.
[Lyons,] Jean de Tournes, 1601.
Very rare first edition of this collection of neo-Latin Protestant biblical poetry by Jean Jacquemot (1543–1615), a notable Geneva preacher, poet, and translator, friend of Theodore Beza, here with the original French in civilité type.
£875
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[JAMIESON, John.]
Congal and Fenella; A Tale in Two Parts.
London, C. Dilly, 1791.
First and only edition of Jamieson’s Scottish epic, bound with an early edition of Gray’s Poems.
£250
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JAYADEVA, and Friedrich MAJER (translator).
Gita-Govinda, ein Indisches Singspiel ... aus der Ursprache ins Englische...
Weimar, Landes-Industrie-Comptoir, 1802.
First and only separate edition of this uncommon German translation of Gita Govinda, a ‘devoutly erotic poem of the twelfth-century Bengali poet Jayadeva’ (ODNB).
£475
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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
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[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
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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
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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
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[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