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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LIVY, Titus.
T. Livii Patauini […] ex XIIII Decadibus Historiae Romanae ab Urbe condita, Decades, prima, tertia, quarta,...
Paris, [Michel Vascosan for] Oudin Petit, 1543 [– Michel Vascosan for himself and Oudin Petit, 1542].
A much-praised edition of Livy’s History, reprinting Vascosan’s 1535 edition and including the philological corpus on Livy by the most established humanists of the time: Rhenanus, Gelenius, Grynaeus, Glareanus, Badius Ascensius, Valla, and Sabellico.
£3800
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LLOYD, Mary.
Brighton a Poem. Descriptive of the Place and Parts adjacent. And other Poems …
London: Printed for the Author. Sold by J. Harding … and by all the Booksellers at Brighton, Worthing, and Eastborne. 1809.
First and only edition of Mary Lloyd’s paean to the attractions of ‘Beauty, and fashion’s ever favourite seat’. The poem vividly portrays Brighton’s dazzling social round: the races, dances at the Assembly Rooms, plays at the theatre, and acrobatic shows at the circus. Particular attention...
£350
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[LONDON.]
Indenture tripartite concerning ‘two severall mesuages or tenements scituate lying and being in or neere fleetstreete...
[London], 20 May 1659
In 1641 Richard Baskerville, described as gentleman, acquired five messuages (houses) in or near Fleet Street from Katherine, the widow of Sir Simon Baskerville, the King’s physician who died that year and was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral. By an indenture dated 5 August 1651 he granted a 500-year...
£650
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[LOQUET, Marie-Françoise].
Voyage de Sophie et d’Eulalie, au Palais du vrai bonheur; ouvrage pour servir de guide dans les voies...
Paris, Charles-Pierre Berton, 1781.
First edition of this rare utopian voyage written by a woman for a readership of women.
£1500
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[LOUIS XIV.]
L’oraison funebre de tres-haute, tres-excellente et tres-puissante princesse monarchie universelle. Prononcée le...
‘Cologne’, s.n., ‘1705’ [1704].
Sole edition, very rare and virtually unstudied, of ‘one of the most curious and violent pamphlets published against Louis XIV’ (Pelissier, trans.).
£1250
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LUCIAN, of Samosata.
Deorum dialogi... una cum interpretatione e regione latina nusquam antea impressi...
Strassbourg, Johannes Schott, 1515.
First edition edited and translated by the German humanist (and musician) Ottmar Nachtgall.
£2100
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LUCRETIUS.
Titi Lucretii Cari de rerum natura libri VI. Ad optimorum exemplarium veritatem exacti. Quae praeterea in hac...
Padua, Giuseppe Comino [for Volpi], 2 January 1721.
First Volpi–Comino edition of Lucretius’s famous materialist and Epicurean poem, the most notable Italian edition of the eighteenth century. The present work is the product of the long-running and fruitful collaboration between the printer Giuseppe Comino and the scholars Giovanni Antonio...
£450
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[LYTTELTON, George, Lord Lyttelton, attributed author].
The Court-Secret: a melancholy Truth. Now first translated from the original...
London: Printed for T. Cooper … 1741
First edition of a political satire in the guise of an oriental fable, criticizing the peace policy and wasteful expenditures of the Vizier [Walpole] in perpetuating ‘his ill-got Power’ in the prelude to the war with Spain, and implicating him in the death of Achmet [the Earl of Scarborough], the...
£350
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MACAULEY, Auley.
A Sermon on the peculiar Advantages of Sunday Schools: preached in the Parish Church of St. Paul, Bedford, on...
London, Printed for C. Dilly … and sold by the Booksellers of Bedford, Northampton, and Leicester, for the Benefit of the Institution. [1792].
First edition of a rare sermon to promote Sunday Schools by the uncle of Thomas Babington Macaulay and brother of the abolitionist Zachary Macaulay.
£250
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MACDIARMID, Hugh.
Stony Limits and Scots Unbound and other Poems ...
Edinburgh, Castle Wynd Printers, [1956].
First edition thus, including some poems that were excluded from the original edition of Stony Limits (1932) over libel fears, and the title-poem only of Scots Unbound (1934), correcting the printers’ errors from the first edition. Bridson had reviewed the first edition of Stony Limits...
£100
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MACDIARMID, Hugh.
A Lap of Honour.
[London,] MacGibbon & Kee, [1967].
First edition, published to coincide with MacDiarmid’s seventy-fifth birthday.
£40
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MACDIARMID, Hugh.
Three Hymns to Lenin …
Edinburgh, Castle Wynd Printers, [1957].
First collected edition, inscribed ‘With love and best wishes to my friend Geoffrey Bridson from Hugh MacDiarmid 17/3/63’. The poems published here had originally appeared separately between 1930 and 1955.
£200
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[MACDIARMID, Hugh.]
WESTON, John C. MacDiarmid’s A Drunk Man looks at the Thistle.
Preston, Akros Publications, 1970.
First edition, inscribed ‘To Joyce and Geoffrey Bridson with warmest regards from Valda and Hugh MacDiarmid’.
£100
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[MACDIARMID, Hugh.]
WESTON, John C. Hugh MacDiarmid’s A Drunk Man looks at the Thistle.
Preston, Akros Publications, 1970.
First edition, inscribed ‘To Joyce and Geoffrey Bridson with love from Hugh MacDiarmid 15/12/70’.
£100
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MACDIARMID, Hugh.
Poems to Paintings by William Johnstone 1933 …
Edinburgh, K.D. Duval, [1963].
First edition.
£25
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MACDIARMID, Hugh.
Direadh I, II and III …
[Stamperia Valdonega for] Frenich, Foss, Kulgin Duval & Colin H. Hamilton, 1974.
First edition, no. 29 of 200 signed copies on Magnani paper.
£175
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MACDIARMID, Hugh [i.e. Christopher GRIEVE], and Valda TREVLYN GRIEVE.
Three Christmas cards, signed from Christopher...
undated.
Three Christmas cards to Douglas Geoffrey Bridson, BBC radio producer and long-time friend of MacDiarmid, and his wife Joyce. The two cards signed from both Christopher and Valda (but in her hand) carry generic messages, the third evidently sent after Christopher’s death, laments ‘I don’t...
£100
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[MACDONNEL, David Evans.]
A Dictionary of Quotations, in most frequent use. Taken from the Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, and Italian...
London, G. G. and J. Robinson, 1797.
First edition, rare, of the first English dictionary of quotations, drawn principally from Latin authors, with some quotations from living languages (mainly French) and some phrases from the law. The dictionary was compiled over some years by ‘look[ing] into every publication political or miscellaneous’...
£650