WALKER, George.

Don Raphael, a Romance …

London, Printed for G. Walker; and T. Hurst; by Exton … 1803.

First edition. ‘In order to satisfy the omnipresent needs of the Gothic industry, Walker apparently felt obliged to turn out a Gothic’s Gothic made up of fragments of Walpole, Beckford, Lewis, Radcliffe, and the cheap and tawdry Gothic chapbooks flooding the bookstalls. The dubious product...

£3250

WALKER, John.

Hints for Improvement in the Art of Reading ...

London, Printed for the Author, and sold by T. Cadell ... G. Robinson ... and T. Becket ..., 1783.

First edition. The future lexicographer John Walker (1732-1807) left grammar school and then absconded from an apprenticeship to join a succession of provincial theatre companies. Garrick hired him in 1754 and for the next four years he performed a number of mainly minor parts at Drury Lane. In 1758...

£650

WALKER, John.

An economical History of the Hebrides and Highlands of Scotland ... in two Volumes ... Edinburgh: Printed at the...

Edinburgh: Printed at the University Press; 1808

First edition. The eminent naturalist John Walker (1731-1803), professor of natural history in the University of Edinburgh (Smollett was one of his students) and keeper of the university museum, made six long journeys into the Highlands and Islands from 1760 to 1786. He was commissioned by the General...

£450

WALLER, Edmund. 

Poems, &c. written by Mr. Ed. Waller … and printed by a Copy of his own Hand-Writing.  All the lyrick Poems...

London, Printed by I. N. for Hu. Mosley … 1645. 

Second (but first licensed) edition of Waller’s first and most important collection, published while he was in exile, and shortly preceded by an unlicensed volume, Workes (London, Thomas Walkley, 1645) (Wing W 495) – ‘an adulterate Copy, surreptitiously and illegally imprinted, to...

£850

[WALSH, William.]

A Funeral Elegy upon the Death of the Queen. Addrest to the Marquess of Normanby.

London, Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1695.

First edition of Walsh’s elegy on the death of Queen Mary II, the very rare first issue without the author’s name on the title-page. The second issue replaces a thick rule on the title-page with Walsh’s name, and adds two thick rules to the final page – this latter setting is also used...

£350

WALTON, Izaac.

The Lives of Dr John Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Mr Richard Hooker, Mr George Herbert … to which are added some Letters...

London, printed by Tho. Newcomb for Richard Marriott … 1670.

First collected edition of Walton’s celebrated lives of poets and divines. ‘If its rarity was as great as its merit it would be one of the most coveted books of the period’ (Pforzheimer). The biography of Wotton was published as part of Reliquiae Wottonianae (1651); Walton’s life of Donne first...

£850

WALTON, Izaak.

The Life of Dr. Sanderson, late Bishop of Lincoln ... to which is added, some short Tracts or Cases of Conscience,...

London, Printed for Richard Marriott. 1678.

First edition, the last of Walton’s five celebrated Lives.

£400

WAPPEROM, Jacobus Joannes. 

Gezangen door J.J. Wapperom. 

The Hague, 1805. 

Very rare collection of songs by the Dutch notary and poet Wapperom (1763–1822), one of only a small number of copies produced, decorated by the author himself and distributed among his friends and family. 

£675

[WARD, Edward, and VOLTAIRE.] 

The Humourous and Diverting Story of Two Sailors, Who, in order to recruit their Stock of...

6, Punderson’s-Place, Bethnal-Green-Road’, [c. 1800?]. 

Seemingly unrecorded edition of this humorous chapbook tale of two penniless sailors who turn to piracy in an attempt to pay their rent, printed with a translation of Voltaire’s Memnon and the anonymous poem ‘Clara’. 

£450

[WARTON, Thomas, the younger.]

The Pleasures of Melancholy. A Poem …

London: Printed for R. Dodsley … and sold by M. Cooper … 1747.

First edition of Warton’s second publication, preceded by Five Pastoral Eclogues (1745), and written at that time, though Warton also contributed to his brother Joseph’s Odes on various Subjects (1746). The Pleasures of Melancholy was Warton’s first major poem, a meditative...

£400

WATSON, Sheila.

‘The Great War, Wyndham Lewis and the Underground Press’, a special issue of artscanada, November 1967, issue...

The recordings included are three sections from One-Way Song, made at Harvard in 1940 alongside his lecture, and ‘Marshall McLuhan recalls Lewis’.

£50

[WEDDING POETRY.]

Applausi alli felicissimi sponsali dell’illustrissimo Sig. Cavaliere Deifebo Perini Brancadori, con l’illustrissima...

Siena, Stamperia del Pubblico, 1699.

Seemingly unrecorded collection of sonnets written to mark the marriage of two Sienese nobles, Deifebo Perini Brancadori and Ottavia Orlandini. The fourteen sonnets, whose authorship remains unknown, take inspiration from the family name of the groom and aspects of the arms of both families, with...

£350

[WESTMINSTER ELECTION.]

A True and impartial Collection of Pieces, in Prose and Verse, which have been written and published on...

London: Printed for W. Owen … 1749.

First edition of a compilation of open letters to the electorate of Westminster, written during the violent 1749 election campaign.

£750

WETZELL, Madame.

Les Matinées de la poupée, ou récréations d’une petite fille.

Paris, J. Langlumé, [1844?].

First and only edition, very rare, of a delightful illustrated account of a girl’s doll. Brillantine, a doll, is given to Célénie for company while her elder sister Alméa is in Africa; the book recounts in detail their relationship over the course of a week, from Brillantine’s arrival with...

£275

WHITEHEAD, William.

Plays and Poems … in two Volumes …

London, Printed for J. Dodsley … 1774.

First and only edition of the collected works of William Whitehead, a protégé of Alexander Pope and poet laureate from 1757-85.

£350

[WHITEHEAD, William.]

Variety. A tale, for married people.

London, for J. Dodsley, 1776.

First edition of this verse fable on married life by William Whitehead (1715-85), the son of a Cambridge baker who rose to become fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, a successful playwright, and poet laureate in succession to Colley Cibber.

£100

WHITMAN, Walt, and Antonio FRASCONI (illustrator).

A Whitman Portrait.

[New York, Spiral Press, 1960.]

First edition, comprising extracts from Leaves of Grass, facsimile letters and a selection of woodcut ‘portraits’ by Frasconi. Numbered 149 of 525 copies signed by Frasconi, printed on Japanese Goyu paper.

£250

[WILLIAMS, John.]

The History of the Gunpowder-Treason, collected from approved Authors, as well popish as protestant.

London, Richard Chiswel, 1678.

First edition of an anti-popish history of the Gunpowder Plot. A well informed account drawing on both Anglican and Catholic sources, The History of the Gunpowder-Treason was published anonymously by John Williams (1633/6–1709), later Bishop of Chichester, amid renewed interest in the subject during...

£750

WILLICH, Anthony Florian Madinger.

Lectures on Diet and Regimen: being a systematic Inquiry into the most rational Means of preserving...

London: Printed for T. N. Longman and O. Rees … 1799.

Second edition, much revised and expanded, printed in the same year as the first: ‘Many important and useful articles have been added, especially in the fifth Chapter, “Of Food and Drink.”’ Willich’s very popular manual was based on a series of lecture given by the eminent physician at Bath...

£375

WISE, Francis.

A Letter to Dr Mead concerning some Antiquities in Berkshire, particularly shewing that the White Horse, which gives...

Oxford, Printed for Thomas Wood … 1738

First editions. A Letter to Dr Mead was the first serious archaeological study of the Uffington White Horse. Francis Wise, Keeper of the Archives at Oxford University and later a friend of Samuel Johnson, contends that the horse, which he eulogises as a work of art, had Saxon origins, because...

£350