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English Literature

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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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  1. DAVENANT, William, Sir.

    Two excellent Plays: the Wits, a Comedie: the Platonick Lovers, a Tragi-Comedie. Both presented...

    London, Printed for G. Bedel, and T. Collins … 1665

    First collected edition of two plays first published in 1636, probably published to fill the revenue gap after the temporary closure of the theatres in 1665 because of the Plague.

    £950

  2. DAVID, [Pierre Drapeyron de].

    A History of the Campaigns of General Pichegru, containing the Operations of the Armies of the North,...

    London, for G.G.J. & J. Robinson, 1796.

    First edition in English, printed in the same year as the French original, of this account of General Pichegru’s campaigns during the early French Revolutionary Wars.

    £185

  3. DAVIDSON, John.

    Smith: a Tragedy.

    Glasgow, Frederick W. Wilson and Brother, 1888.

    First edition of a rare foray into drama by a Scottish poet who influenced T.S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens. John Davidson (1857-1909) was highly regarded during his lifetime by writers like W.B. Yeats, and later by Eliot, Stevens, and Aldous Huxley. Along with Yeats, Ernest Dowson, and others,...

    £300

  4. DAY, Thomas.

    The History of Sandford and Merton; a Work intended for the Use of Children …

    London: Printed for B. Crosby … Darton and Harvey … and T. Ostell … 1803.

    First edition thus of Thomas Day’s wildly popular story for children, here in ‘a more reduced form’ as ‘the price of the original work may be incommodious to … young readers’. This was was not the same text as the ‘Abridged’ version first published by Wallis and Newbery (and by Darton...

    £150

  5. DE BEAUVOIR, Simone.

    The Mandarins. A Novel …

    Cleveland and New York, The World Publishing Company, [1956].

    First edition in English, signed by De Beauvoir on the limitation leaf, one of 500 unnumbered copies, of which only 275 were for sale.

    £750

  6. [DEFOE, Daniel].

    A Letter to the Dissenters.

    London: Printed for John Morphew … 1713.

    First edition, the state with p. 48 numbered correctly. This tract is an admonition to Defoe’s fellow Dissenters, ‘saying that they enjoy great privileges at present, the Queen having undertaken to maintain the Toleration Act and even having for long resisted the Act against Occasional Conformity....

    £750

  7. [DEFOE, Daniel.] 

    [Incipit:] Ye True-born Englishmen proceed … 

    [London, 1701.] 

    One of a number of editions (at least seven) in 1701, priority not established, of this popular poem attacking Parliament for its failure to support the Dutch against the aggressions of Louis XIV of France.  The texts ‘vary considerably’ (Moore) across the printings, which all appeared without...

    £1000

  8. [DE LA COSTE.]

    Voyage philosophique d’Angleterre fait en 1783 et 1784.

    A Londres. Et se trouve à Paris, chez Poinçoit … 1787.

    First edition, second issue, with cancel title-pages redated 1787 (first 1786) – an interesting and detailed sociological discussion of England and in the English on the eve of the French Revolution, in the form of discursive letters. The author deals with London’s institutions and buildings, taverns...

    £250

  9. [DELAMARCHE, Alexandre, cartographer; Bernard COUDERT, lithographer.]

    ‘Atlas’.

    Paris, Legay, [c. 1889].

    An attractive set of large educational jigsaw maps showing the world, Europe, and France, preserved in its original allegorical box.

    £875

  10. DENNIS, John.

    The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry, contain’d in some new Discoveries never made before, requisite for the Writing...

    London, Printed for Geo. Strahan … and Bernard Lintott … 1704.

    First edition. Published as a ‘preliminary’ to a proposed, but never completed, masterwork, The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry comprises a Preface, Proposal and ‘Specimen’, the latter being an essay substantially on Milton, ‘one of the greatest and most daring Genius’s that has appear’d...

    £1250

  11. [DENNIS, John, and George DUCKETT?]

    Pope Alexander’s Supremacy and Infallibility examin’d, and the Errors of Scriblerus...

    London, J. Roberts, 1729.

    First edition, very scarce in commerce, of an exhilaratingly spiteful attack on Pope in the wake of the publication of the Dunciad variorum, comprising seven different satirical texts, three in verse, issued in quarto to match ‘the least pompous Edition of the Dunciad’.

    £3250

  12. DESENFANS, Noel Joseph.

    Les deux Hermites, dédié a mylord Lyttelton …

    A Londres; chez R. Davis … J Ridley … W Owen … 1773.

    First and only edition, uncommon, of an epistolary novel by the future art dealer Noel Joseph Desenfans. The scene is Paris in the 1680s, the theme is Enlightenment, and the author’s aim was to inspire ‘l’horreur de l’oppression, sentiment nécessaire à l’harmonie de la Société, & vertu...

    £650

  13. DESFORGES, Pierre Choudard.

    Tom Jones a Londres, Comédie en cinq actes et en vers, tirée du roman de Fielding … Réprésentée,...

    Paris, Chez Prault, Imprimeur du Roi … 1789.

    Later edition, first published 1782. Desforges’s dramatic adaptation of Fielding’s novel was followed in 1788 by an apparently inferior sequel, Tom Jones et Fellamar.

    £95

  14. DESLANDES, André-François Boureau.

    Dying Merrily: or, historical and critical Reflexions on the Conduct of great Men in all Ages,...

    London: Printed for M. Cooper ... 1745.

    First edition of this translation of Réfléxions sur les grands hommes que sont morts en plaisantant (1712), by the philosopher and naval official André-François Deslandes (1670–1757), an important precursor of the Encyclopédistes.

    £450

  15. DIBDIN, C[harles], the younger.

    Mirth and Metre: consisting of Poems, serious, humorous, and satirical; Songs, Sonnets, Ballads,...

    London: Printed for Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe ... by W. Wilson. 1807

    First edition of the first collection of verse by the manager of Sadler’s Wells, including a section of songs from his ‘most approved’ pantomimes and ‘scenic’ productions. The ticket of a Newark bookseller makes it likely that the stamp ‘Newstead’ refers to Byron’s ancestral home, Newstead...

    £225

  16. DICKENS, Charles.

    Mäster Humphreys Klocka … Förra [–Sednare] Delen.

    Stockholm, Hos. L. J. Hjerta, 1842.

    First edition in Swedish, very rare, of Master Humphrey’s Clock (1840-1), comprising the framing narrative of short stories, followed by The Old Curiosity Shop (‘Den Gamla Antiqvitets-boden’). Barnaby Rudge, omitted here, was published separately in 1845.

    £850

  17. DICKENS, Charles. 

    The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club … with forty-three illustrations, by R. Seymour and Phiz. 

    London, Chapman & Hall, 1837. 

    First edition, first issue.  The Pickwick Papers was serialised in twenty parts from April 1836, the novel reaching its conclusion in November 1837, when it was also released as a three-decker.  It was both Dickens’s most popular work and the launch of his relationship with Hablot K. Browne...

    £2000

  18. DICKENS, Charles.

    Mäster Humphreys Klocka … Förra [–Sednare] Delen.

    Stockholm, Hos. L. J. Hjerta, 1842.

    First edition in Swedish, rare, of Master Humphrey’s Clock (1840-1), comprising the framing narrative of short stories, followed by The Old Curiosity Shop (‘Den Gamla Antiqvitets-boden’). Barnaby Rudge, omitted here, was published separately in 1845.

    £350

  19. DICKENS, Charles; Hablot Knight BROWNE and George CATTERMOLE, illustrators.

    Master Humphrey’s Clock.

    London, Chapman and Hall, 1840–41.

    First edition in book form, of Charles Dickens’ weekly periodical, featuring a collection of short stories and his two novels The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge.

    £175

  20. DILWORTH, W. H.

    The History of the Conquest of Mexico, by the celebrated Hernan Cortes. Containing a faithful and entertaining...

    London: Printed for William Anderson … 1759.

    First edition, very scarce, of a history of the conquistadores for young readers, loosely derived from Antonio Solís de Ribadeneyra’s Historia de la Conquista de México.

    £1850