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English Literature

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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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  1. LANCINA, Juan Alfonso Rodríguez de.

    Historia de las reboluciones del Senado de Messina, que ofrece al sacro, Catolico, real nombre...

    Madrid, Por Julian de Paredes, impressor de libros, en la Plaçuela del Angel, 1692.

    First and only edition of this rare account of the anti-Spanish revolt of Messina, in Sicily, which broke out in 1674 and lasted until 1678, by Juan Alfonso Rodríguez de Lancina (c. 1649–1703). Lancina, a judge of the Grand Court of the Vicaria, the highest criminal court of the Kingdom of...

    £2500

  2. [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

  3. [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

  4. LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, François, Duc de.

    The Memoirs of the Duke de La Rochefoucault. Containing the private Intrigues for obtaining...

    London, Printed for James Partridge … 1683.

    First edition in English, translated from Mémoires de M. D.L.R. sur les brigues à la mort de Louys XIII (1662). At court in his earlier years La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) took an active part in the cabals and rivalries that surrounded Richelieu and Louis XIII, and subsequently in the Fronde...

    £650

  5. [LAWRENCE, George Alfred].

    Barren Honour. A Tale. By the Author of ‘Guy Livingstone.’ In two Volumes ...

    London: Parker, Son, and Bourn ... 1862.

    First edition. Lawrence has been grouped with Kingsley and Hughes in the ‘muscular’ school of Victorian fiction with its sturdy heroes and Christian Socialism. Barren Honour is ‘a study of magnificently chivalrous self-destruction’ on the part of its hero Sir Alan Wyverne, ‘a thoroughbred’...

    £350

  6. LAWRENCE, James Henry.

    A Picture of Verdun, or the English Detained in France … from the Portfolio of a Detenu.

    London, T. Hookham junior & E.T. Hookham, 1810.

    First edition of this remarkable account of life among the British prisoners in Napoleonic Verdun, following the mass arrest of English residents in and visitors to France.

    £600

  7. LAWRENCE, Thomas Edward.

    Revolt in the Desert.

    London: Jonathon Cape, 1927.

    First edition of Lawrence’s popularly successful abridgement of Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

    £275

  8. 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

  9. [LE GUERCHOIS, Madeleine d’Aguesseau, Madame.]

    Avis d’une mere a son fils.

    Paris, Desaint & Saillant, 1743.

    A popular work of matrimonial advice, in a simple vellum binding richly decorated by the master calligrapher Francois Nicolas Bédigis (1738–1814).

    £2750

  10. LEIGH, Samuel Egerton, Sir.

    Munster Abbey, a Romance; interspersed with Reflections on Virtue and Morality … in three...

    Edinburgh, Printed by John Moir … for W. Creech, Cross, and S. Cheyne … [and] for Hookham & Carpentar … Vernor & Hood … London, 1797.

    First edition. Despite its ‘gothic’ title this is a novel of contemporary high life in England and on the Grand Tour, avoiding ‘extravagant descriptions of supernatural scenes and events’. Munster Abbey in Devon is the seat of the hero, Mr. Belford, a bachelor ‘happily possessed of...

    £1250

  11. LELAND, John.

    The Itinerary of John Leland, in or about the Years 1535-1543. Edited by Lucy Toulmin Smith, with a Foreword by Thomas...

    London, Centaur Press Ltd, 1964.

    The authoritative edition of Leland’s Itinerary, a monument of English bibliography and antiquarian research. The Itinerary comprises the notes of the antiquary John Leland (c. 1503–1552) on his journeys through England and Wales during the dissolution of the monasteries. According...

    £50

  12. 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

  13. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    Tarr.

    London, The Egoist Ltd., 1918.

    First English edition, published in an edition of 1000 (of which 87 distributed gratis). T. S. Eliot thought the book ‘remarkable’. Set in pre-war Paris, Tarr pits its eponymous English artist (‘a caricatural self-portrait of sorts’) against Kreisler, a self-destructive German...

    £300

  14. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    The Caliph’s Design. Architects! Where is your Vortex?

    London, The Egoist Ltd., 1919.

    First edition, a pamphlet of art criticism, particularly an attack on ugly modern architecture; there is (rare) praise for Cézanne and Picasso.

    £400

  15. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    The Wild Body.

    London, Chatto & Windus, 1927.

    First trade edition, first issue binding; there was also a special edition of 85 signed copies. A collection, in a much reworked form, of some early sketches written in Brittany, some of which had been published in 1909.

    £250

  16. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    Snooty Baronet.

    London, Cassell & Co. Ltd., 1932.

    First edition, first issue binding, the first of three books Lewis published with Cassell, and the first of his novels not to find an American publisher.

    £400

  17. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    The Old Gang and the New Gang.

    London, Desmond Harmsworth, 1933.

    First edition, binding variant (1), a work on ‘youth cults’ and the rise of European dictatorships. Bridson’s review was not especially complimentary, noting ‘that peculiar “kiddish” idiom which Mr. Lewis uses to advantage in his satiric novels and to little purpose elsewhere … We can excuse...

    £250

  18. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    Men without Art …

    London, Cassell & Company Limited, [1934].

    First edition; Lewis takes on and demolishes Hemingway, Faulkner, and Woolf. Bridson reviewed the book in The Criterion in January 1935, pp. 335-337.

    £200

  19. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    The Revenge for Love.

    London, Cassell & Co. Ltd., [1937].

    First edition, very scarce in the dust-jacket, of ‘one of Lewis’s finest novels … a brilliant novel of character’ (Bridson, The Filibuster), set in pre-Civil War Spain and centred on an incident of Communist gun-running on the border. ‘Here for once, Communism is accepted as a...

    £1250

  20. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    Blasting & Bombardiering …

    London, Eyre & Spottiswode, 1937.

    First edition, first issue binding, of one of Lewis’s best and best-known works. It was the first of two largely autobiographical books, this covering 1914-1926 as stated on the jacket, and is now remembered in particular for its coining of the much-discussed phrase ‘The Men of 1914’, referring...

    £500