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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[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, and Valda TREVLYN GRIEVE.
Three Christmas cards, signed from Christopher and Valda, or Valda alone, undated.
MACDIARMID, Hugh and Valda TREVLYN GRIEVE.
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 seem to get anything done. Will need to snap out of it – I’ve got all Christopher’s papers sorted – most have gone to Edin...
£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: Printed for G. G. and J. Robinson … 1797
First edition of the first English dictionary of quotations (Alston), albeit in foreign tongues. 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...
£650
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MACFARLANE, Patrick.
A new and copious English and Gaelic Vocabulary, with the different Parts of Speech; in alphabetical Order....
Edinburgh: Printed [by R. Menzies] for the Author, and Sold by A. Constable and Co. Edinburgh. 1815.
First edition of this early English-Gaelic dictionary. The English-Gaelic Vocabulary was published alone, as here, at 5s.6d., or together with the Gaelic-English part at 12s.6d. The Gaelic scholar complied it because the ‘want of an English and Gaelic Vocabulary has long been a desideratum...
£175
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[MACKENZIE, Lieutenant-Colonel George, and others, defendants.]
The Trial, before the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland, at...
Aberdeen: Printed by J. Burnett ... for C. and J. Robinson, London [and stationers in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Banff, Elgin, and Inverness], 1803.
Sole edition. This controversial trial was brought as a private prosecution after the Lord Advocate, Charles Hope, had decided not to prosecute any officers or soldiers for killing four peaceable inhabitants of Aberdeen after celebrations of the King’s birthday on 4 June 1802 had got out of control....
£150
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MACLEISH, Archibald.
This Music Crept by me upon the Waters.
Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1953.
First trade edition, inscribed ‘To Geoffrey Bridson through whom alone it happened / with admiration Archibald MacLeish’.
£250
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MACLEISH, Archibald.
Conquistador.
Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1932.
First edition, signed ‘Archibald MacLeish / Conway, Mass’. This long poem won MacLeish his first of three Pulitzer prizes.
£300
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MACNEICE, Louis.
Christopher Columbus, a radio play …
[London,] Faber & Faber, [1944].
First edition of MacNiece’s early radio play, first broadcast on 12 October 1942 to mark the 450th anniversary of the ‘discovery’ of America, with the role of Columbus played by Laurence Olivier.
£300
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MACNEICE, Louis.
Out of the Picture. A Play in two Acts.
London, Faber and Faber Limited, [1946].
First edition, third impression.
£25
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MADDEN, Dodgson Hamilton.
The Diary of Master William Silence: A Study of Shakespeare & of Elizabethan Sport.
London, New York, & Bombay, Longmans, Green, & Co., 1897.
First edition of Madden’s reimagination of Elizabethan sport, derived from passages from Shakespeare. Though a legal writer and prominent jurist, being appointed attorney-general of Ireland in 1889, the best known publication of Dodgson Hamilton Madden (1840–1928) remains the Diary of Master...
£120
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[MAGRATH, Cornelius.]
‘Ein Irländer Riss …’
Nuremberg, 1756.
A delightful promotional image for the Continental tour of ‘The Irish Giant’ Cornelius Magrath (1736/7–1760), ‘To be seen in Nuremberg in the month of July 1756’.
£3000
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MANLEY, Mrs. [Delarivier].
The Power of Love: in seven Novels viz. I. The fair Hypocrite. II. The Physician’s Stratagem. ...
London, Printed for John Barber … and John Morphew … 1720.
First edition, apparently a presentation copy, of Delarivier Manley’s last work of prose, a collection of seven amorous novellas partly derived from William Painter’s Palace of Pleasure (1566), ‘adding divers new Incidents’, and supplemented by several original compositions. Historically...
£2500
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[MANNING, Frederic.]
The Middle Parts of Fortune. Somme and Ancre, 1916.
Piazza Press, Issued to subscribers by Peter Davies, 1929.
First, limited and unexpurgated edition of this masterpiece of the First World War, published anonymously (Manning was only identified as the author shortly before his death in 1943); no. 205 of 520 numbered copies.
£750
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[MARANA, Giovanni Paolo (attr.).]
Letters on the French Nation, by a Sicilian Gentleman resident in Paris, to his Friend...
London: Printed for T. Lownds ... 1749.
First edition of this translation, very rare, of a work first printed in French in Paris in 1700 (see below) and, in a different translation, in English in 1704 as An agreeable Criticism of the City of Paris.
£1250
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MARINI, Giovanni Ambrogio.
The Desperadoes; an heroick History. Translated from the Italian of the celebrated Marini (the Original...
London: Printed by W. R. and sold by T. Asltey … J. Isted … and T. Worrall … 1733.
First and only edition in English of Le gare de’ disperati (1644), the second of three romances by Marini (1596-1668). Inevitably, ‘It was necessary to omit many Things that were contrary to our Morals; to Decency, and to the Purity of the English Tongue …’. But the general scheme of events...
£1000
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MARIVAUX, Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de.
Le Paysan parvenu: or, the fortunate Peasant. Being Memoirs of the Life of Mr. ––––....
London: Printed for John Brindley … Charles Corbett … and Richard Wellington … 1735
First edition in English, originally published in French in the Hague in 1734-5. This is the second of the two important novels by Marivaux, which broke new ground in the art of writing fiction. ‘Where La Vie de Marianne belongs to the moralizing and sentimental romance tradition, Le Paysan...
£650