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.

  1. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    America, I Presume.

    New York, Howell, Soskins & Co., [1940].

    First edition, Lewis’s first impressions of America after his abrupt departure thence in September 1939. He was to remain in North America for the duration of World War WII.

    £75

  2. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    Rotting Hill …

    London, Methuen & Co. Ltd., [1951].

    First edition, inscribed ‘To Geoffrey / Benedictions / Wyndham Lewis’. Rotting Hill was a collection of stories, ‘no more political than “some of Charles Dickens’ books, and all by Mr. Shaw”’ (Bridson, The Filibuster), in that ‘today our lives are saturated by’ politics....

    £750

  3. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    Self Condemned.

    London, Methuen & Co. Ltd., [1954].

    First edition, second impression (June 1954), one of Lewis’s most successful works, a novel based on his self-imposed exile in Canada during World War II. Eliot thought the work one of Lewis’s best, ‘a novel of almost unbearable poignancy’. Bridson and Lewis had corresponded about the work, then...

    £200

  4. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    One-Way Song. With a Foreword by T. S. Eliot.

    London, Methuen, [1960].

    Second edition, ostensibly an unaltered reprint of the first edition of 1933, but in fact with some changes. Eliot’s foreword is new to this edition. Bridson had reviewed the original edition uncharitably as ‘versified pamphleteering’ in Poetry XLV: 3 (Dec 1934), accusing it of being a satirical...

    £150

  5. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    An Anthology of his Prose. Edited with an introduction by E.W.F. Tomlin.

    London, Methuen & Co Ltd., [1969].

    First edition. ‘The Sea-Mists of Winter’, Lewis’s famous article on the approach of blindness, appears in this Anthology for the first time in book form – the original article from The Listener is also laid in. Bridson has noted in pencil where the book text differs (with several...

    £150

  6. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    Unlucky for Pringle. Unpublished and other Stories … Edited and introduced by C. J. Fox and Robert Chapman.

    [London,] Vision, [1973].

    First edition, inscribed by the editor ‘To Geoffrey and Joyce Bridson with warmest good wishes Cy Fox’. Seven of the fifteen stories were first published here. Fox’s postcard thanks Bridson for a letter ‘which was terrifically gratifying – especially from one who did so much to get the...

    £100

  7. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    The Roaring Queen. Edited and introduced by Walter Allen.

    London, Secker & Warburg, [1973].

    Limited edition, no XXVII of XXX copies not for sale, signed by Mrs Wyndham Lewis, Michael Ayrton & Walter Allen, with a signed etching by Michael Ayrton. A further 100 numbered copies were for general sale at £30 each.

    £500

  8. LEWIS, Wyndham. 

    The Human Age.  Book Two, Monstre Gai.  Book Three, Malign Fiesta.  Illustrations by Michael Ayrton. 

    London, Methuen & Co. Ltd., [1955]. 

    First edition, inscribed ‘To Geoffrey Bridson – you who did so much to make the completion of this book possible, and who was chiefly responsible for its translation into Radio drama – I salute you. / Wyndham Lewis’. 

    £1750

  9. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    The Vulgar Streak.

    London, Robert Hale Ltd., 1941.

    First edition, first impression, a scarce work because of wartime paper shortages and, possibly, the destruction of a portion of the first impression in the Blitz; certainly Robert Hale’s offices were bombed and the records destroyed, and the work was reprinted within a month.

    £750

  10. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    The Writer and the Absolute …

    London, Methuen & Co., Ltd., [1952].

    First edition, inscribed ‘To my dear friend Geoffrey Bridson / Wyndham Lewis / 25 June 1952’. The work was published the following day.

    £750

  11. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    The Childermass … Section 1.

    London, Chatto & Windus, 1928.

    First edition, no. 74 of 225 copies of the special edition, signed by Lewis, additionally inscribed, in c. 1951, ‘To Geoffrey Bridson (through whom I am enabled to finish this book) – deepest thanks and friendliest greetings / Wyndham Lewis’.

    £2500

  12. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    The Lion and the Fox. The Role of the Hero in the Plays of Shakespeare …

    London, Methuen & Co. Ltd., [1955.]

    Reprint of the second edition of Lewis’s ‘first political book’, a collection of essays engaging with Shakespeare and Machiavelli first published in 1927 and then reissued by Methuen in 1951; inscribed in a very shaky hand ‘To Geoffrey Bridson from Wyndham / Oct 1956’.

    £300

  13. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    The Red Priest.

    London, Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1956.

    First edition, the last book published before Lewis’s death in March 1957. Bridson and Lewis had corresponded about a possible radio adaptation but Bridson had concluded it was over-episodic and would not translate well (letter of 6 March 1951).

    £150

  14. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    Mrs Dukes’ Million.

    Toronto, The Coach House Press, 1977.

    First edition, Lewis’s first novel, written in 1908-10 but never before published.

    £75

  15. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    A Soldier of Humour and selected Writings. Edited with an introduction by Raymond Rosenthal.

    New York & Toronto, A Signet Classic, 1966.

    First edition, inscribed by the editor: ‘Geoffrey I thought you would be interested in this new anthology’.

    £75

  16. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    The Roaring Queen. Edited and introduced by Walter Allen.

    London, Secker & Warburg, [1973].

    Second (but first published) edition, regular copy.

    £50

  17. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    Filibusters in Barbary (Record of a Visit to the Sous).

    London, Grayson & Grayson, [1932].

    First edition, scarce in the dust-jacket, ‘an account of his travels which Lewis had written after a holiday with his wife in French Morocco and the Spanish Sahara. The book … emerged as one of the liveliest travel-books of the time. Like all of Lewis’s writing, it was quirky and opinionated,...

    £500

  18. LEWIS, Wyndham, and D. G. BRIDSON.

    Typescript for broadcast: ‘Satiric Verse … The text of a lecture delivered at Harvard University...

    Transmitted 9 July and 23 August 1957.

    Although a recording of Lewis reading from ‘One Way Song’ was made at Harvard in 1940, the lecture that accompanied it, ‘Satiric Verse’, was not then recorded. For the 1957 broadcast it was read by Walter Allen ‘from Lewis’s own manuscript notes’. Several other sections were read by Stephen...

    £1200

  19. [LILY, William.]

    A short introduction of grammar compiled and set forth for the bringing up of all those that intend to attain...

    London, S. Buckley and T. Longman, 1738.

    Two beautifully printed eighteenth-century Latin grammars ascribed to the great grammarian and schoolmaster William Lily (1468?–1522/1523).

    £550

  20. LIPSIUS, Justus.

    De amphitheatro liber. In quo forma ipsa loci expressa, et ratio spectandi. Cum aeneis figuris.

    Antwerp [i.e. Leiden], Christophe Plantin, 1585.

    Two works by the great Flemish humanist and philologist Justus Lipsius (1547–1606), on amphitheatres and on Latin pronunciation.

    £950