English Literature
Contact Donovan Rees or Zach Larsen
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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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, George.
Modern Love, and Poems of the English Roadside, with Poems and Ballads.
London, Chapman & Hall, 1862.
First edition of a daring and innovative Victorian collection of poems adapting the sonnet sequence tradition (though in poems of sixteen lines) to the emotional realities of a failed contemporary marriage, tracing the course of estrangement as love gives way to discord, jealousy, unhappiness, and...
£450
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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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[MONTEMAYOR, Jorge de, and Gaspar GIL POLO.]
The Troublesome and Hard Adventures in Love. Lively setting forth, the Feavers, the...
Alsop ... 1652 [but 1651].
The rare second edition of a text of 1594 known in a single imperfect copy (STC 153.3).
£7500
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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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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
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MOUSSON, Pierre.
Tragoediae seu diversarum gentium et imperiorum magni principes. Dati in theatrum collegii regii Henrici magni ...
La Flèche, George Griveau, 1621.
First edition, provincially-printed, of four Neo-Latin tragedies by the French Jesuit professor and playwright Pierre Mousson (c. 1560–1637) inspired by four great figures from the classical world.
£725
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[MULLIS, William].
A brief Account of the Blue Coat Hospital, and Public Library, in the College, Manchester, founded by Humphrey...
Manchester: Printed by Leech … 1826.
Sole edition, privately printed and very rare. William Mullis was the deputy librarian of Chetham’s Library, the oldest free public reference library in the English-speaking world. It was founded in 1653, along with the Blue Coat School (two years earlier), by bequests from the merchant and banker...
£600
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MÜNSTER, Sebastian.
[Melechet ha-Dikduk] מלאכת הדיקדוק Institutiones grammaticae in Hebraeam linguam FR Sebastiani...
[Basel,] Johann Froben, 1524.
First edition of Sebastian Münster’s (1488–1552) important Hebrew grammar for students, bound with the first Latin edition of his translation of Elia Levita’s Composita verborum, both critical to the Christian scholarly reception of Hebrew grammatical works and here enhanced by extensive...
£7000
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[MURDER.]
A Warning Piece against the Crime of Murder: or, an Account of many extraordinary and most providential Discoveries of...
[London,] Printed for Wiliam Owen … ; and R Goadby, in Sherborne. [1752.]
First edition, very scarce, a fascinating compendium of grim crimes both real and clearly fictional, many ‘providentially discovered’ in a dream, revealed by returning ghosts, or uncovered ‘after many years concealment’, published in the context of the Murder Act of 1752 which introduced...
£300
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MUSGRAVE, Samuel.
Two Dissertations. I. On the Graecian Mythology. II. An Examination of Sir Isaac Newton’s Objections to...
London, printed by J. Nichols, 1782.
First edition of this work by the classical scholar Samuel Musgrave (1732–1780), published posthumously for the benefit of the author’s widow, with a generous list of subscribers thanks to the efforts of the editor, Thomas Tyrwhitt.
£450