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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MEDINA POMAR, Duke de.
Fashion and Passion or, Life in Mayfair … by the Duke de Pomar… Author of “The Honeymoon” and “Through...
London: Chapman & Hall … 1877.
Second edition (first published in 1876) of this wildly-popular novel of London society, published after the first edition sold out in two months. It follows the fortunes of the beautiful Señorita Consuelo and her lover Alfredo, who meet on a small-trader passage from Bilbao to London. Consuelo’s...
£125
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[MEIN, Robert.]
A Nominal Encomium on the Election of Magistrates at Michaelmass 1764.
[Edinburgh, 1764.]
First edition, very rare, a poem celebrating both the election of James Stuart of Binend as Lord Provost of Edinburgh, and the plans for the construction of Edinburgh New Town, of which building was to commence in 1767. Typically for Mein he anagrammatizes his subject as ‘A Just Master’,...
£450
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MELECRINIS, Maria Teresa.
Le voci del cuore a Maria Teresa Melecrinis dei baroni di Ioppolo e Coccorino che a di 6 luglio 1846...
Naples, stamperia dell' Iride, 1846.
Very rare collection of odes and sonnets composed to mark the entry of Maria Teresa Melecrinis into the Benedictine monastery of San Paolo at Sorrento.
£175
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MEREDITH, George.
One of our Conquerors ... In three Volumes ...
London: Chapman and Hall ... 1891.
First edition of a ‘striking study of marital misery’ (Sutherland). Sadleir 1700.
£400
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MEREDITH, George.
One of our Conquerors ... In three Volumes ...
London: Chapman and Hall ... 1891.
First edition of a ‘striking study of marital misery’ (Sutherland). Sadleir 1700.
£300
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MEREDITH, George.
Poems …
London: John W. Parker and Son … [1851].
First edition of Meredith’s first book, which he brought out at his ‘own risk, losing £50 or £60 on the venture’. ‘Not surprisingly he acquired a strong distate for what he later regarded as juvenilia with direct relationship to his first marriage’ (Collie), and there is some suggestion that...
£700
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[MEREDITH, Royston].
Mr. Steele detected: or, the poor and oppressed Orphan’s Letters to the great and arbitrary Mr. Steele;...
London: Printed for John Morphew … 1714.
First and only edition: a fulminating attack on The Ladies Library. Written by a Lady. Published by Mr. Steele (1714), now known to be a curious adaptation by Bishop Berkeley of Jeremy Taylor’s devotional classics, The Rule and Exercise of Holy Living and Holy Dying, in ‘large...
£950
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MEYERS, Jeffrey, editor.
Wyndham Lewis, A Revaluation. New essays.
London, The Athlone Press, [1980].
First edition, printing on pp. 238-251 Bridson’s essay ‘The Human Age in Retrospect’, his last published work.
£50
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MILBANK, Augustus Sussex.
A Treatise upon the political & social Condition of Europe, from the Fall of the Roman Empire, down to...
[Richmond, M. Bell for] London, Messrs Hatchard & Son, and Richmond, M. Bell, 1847.
First and only edition of a rare Yorkshire-printed treatise of social history by an amateur historian and educational enthusiast, inscribed by the author to the Countess of Sandwich.
£125
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MILNE, A. A.; E. H. SHEPARD, illustrator.
The House at Pooh Corner.
London, Methuen & Co., 1928.
First edition, first impression, of A. A. Milne’s classic final collection of tales about Winnie the Pooh and friends, and the first introduction of Tigger.
£650
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MIRANDULA (or MIRANDOLA), Ottaviano.
Illustrium poetarum flores.
Antwerp, Joannes Bellerus, 1563.
A remarkable copy, with numerous and eloquent contemporary annotations and additions in a French hand, of a scarce edition of an extremely popular collection of quotes and passages from classics of poetry, published by the renowned Flemish printer and composer Joannes Bellerus (Jean Bellère,...
£1950
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MITCHISON, Naomi; Wyndham LEWIS, illustrator.
Beyond this Limit …
[London,] Jonathan Cape, [1935].
First edition. This was Lewis’s only collaboration with Mitchison but she arranged for the publication of his Left Wings over Europe the following year, and they remained friends until his death. 32 designs by Lewis served as the inspiration for Mitchison’s narrative.
£75
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[MONTAGU, Lady Mary Wortley.]
To the Imitator of the Satire of the second Book of Horace.
London: Printed for J. Roberts … 1733.
First edition under this title, ‘the most famous of attacks on Pope and perhaps the only one where Pope has found a worthy adversary’ (Guerinot).
£250
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MOORE, George.
Manuscript commonplace book of poems, songs, prayers, and letters.
1805-1855.
An appealing commonplace book of verses and songs, with occasional prayers and letters, mostly written by George Moore (1794–1854), a London soda water manufacturer and amateur poet who was murdered by the notorious French revolutionary Emmanuel Barthélemy (1823–1855).
£550
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[MOORE, Thomas.]
The Fudge Family in Paris. Edited by Thomas Brown, the Younger …
London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown … 1818.
First edition, the comic result of a trip to France with Samuel Rogers, ‘a set of verse epistles attributed to writers ranging from a servile creature of the tories to a passionate champion of Ireland, with some light relief from Miss Biddy Fudge, a young lady of fashion’ (ODNB). It was very...
£125
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MOORE, Thomas.
Lalla Rookh, an Oriental Romance … eleventh Edition.
London, [A. & R. Spottiswoode for] Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown, 1822.
An early edition of Thomas Moore’s popular orientalist poem Lalla Rookh, owned by a young Siegfried Sassoon.
£450
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[MORGAN, Macnamara].
The Causidicade. A Panegyri-Satiri-Serio-Comic-Dramatical Poem. On the strange Resignation, and stranger-Promotion....
London: Printed for M. Cooper … 1743
First edition, a verse satire on the sudden resignation as solicitor-general of Sir John Strange, one of the ‘old corps’ who still supported Walpole after his fall, and the appointment as his successor of William Murray, a member of the Duke of Newcastle’s circle. There is a satirical ‘Dramatis...
£125
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MORI, Ascanio de’.
Giuoco piacevole.
Mantua, Giacomo Ruffinello, 1575.
First edition of an uncommon Renaissance collection of tales in prose and verse, set in the Lombard city of Brescia during the Carnival of the ‘prosperous and peaceful’ year 1566, employing the narrative frame canonised by Boccaccio in the Decameron, though with pointedly opposed features.
£950
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MORRISON, Arthur.
Tales of Mean Streets. Lizerunt, Squire Napper, Without Visible Means, Three Rounds and Others …
Methuen & Co. … London, 1894.
First edition of Morrison’s second book. Born into a working-class family in Poplar, Morrison was first employed at the People’s Palace in Mile End, and then as a journalist for the evening Globe. His first book, The Shadows around Us (1891), comprised supernatural tales first printed...
£250
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MORTON, Thomas.
Secrets worth knowing; a Comedy, in five Acts. As performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden …
London: Printed for T. N. Longman … 1798.
First edition of a comedy by the prolific dramatist Thomas Morton (first issue, with the epilogue beigging on F4 and four rather than five pages of ads). A prodigal son conceals his marriage to ensure his legacy, with unfortunate consueqences; it was ‘in some parts ludicrous and bordering on the improbable...
£100