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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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
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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
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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
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DICKENS, Charles.
The Nonesuch Dickens. The Complete Works of Charles Dickens.
London, The Nonesuch Press, 1937-38.
Limited edition of 877, of which 66 sets were destroyed when a bomb hit the bindery in September 1940, so at most 811 complete sets survive (Dreyfus, Nonesuch Press, 108). The steel plate included with this set is number 605, “Solemn reference is made to Mr. Bunsby” from Dombey and...
£6750
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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
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DIODORUS Siculus.
Bibliothecae historicae libri XV. Hoc est, quotquot Graece extant de quadraginta quorum quinque nunc primum Latine...
Basel, Heinrich Petri, August 1559.
Important edition, the first to be overseen by Sébastien Castellion, of Diodorus’s influential ‘Historical library’.
£2500
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[DISNEY, John].
Memoirs of Thomas Brand-Hollis Esq. ...
London: Printed by T. Gillet ... 1808.
First edition of a privately printed memoir of Thomas Brand of the Hyde, who assumed the name Brand-Hollis on inheriting the Dorset estates (and library and collection of sculpture) of his friend the ‘Republican’ Thomas Hollis, the Whig bibliophile. The author, John Disney, a close friend of Thomas...
£750
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D’ISRAELI, Isaac.
Romances …
London: Printed for Cadell and Davies … Murray and Highley … J. Harding … and J. Wright. 1799.
First edition, a collection of three prose tales by the father of the novelist and Prime Minister, with an introductory ‘Poetical Essay on Romance and Romancers’. The longest piece is ‘Mejnoun and Leila, the Arabian Petrarch and Laura’, which has echoes of Beckford and draws on the learned orientalism...
£950
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[DODSLEY, Robert, editor].
A Collection of Poems. By several Hands. In three Volumes.
London: Printed for R. Dodsley … 1748.
First edition, the most influential poetical miscellany of the eighteenth century. Dodsley’s avowed aim was ‘to preserve to the public those poetical performances, which seemed to merit a longer rememberance than what would probably be secured to them by the Manner wherein they were originally published’....
£450
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DONNE, John.
Poems … with Elegies on the authors Death …
London, Printed by M. F. for John Marriot, and are to be sold at his Shop … 1635.
Second edition, adding seventeen new poems by Donne (and eleven false attributions), and three more elegies on his death. The poems have been rearranged into sections, headed ‘Songs and Sonets’, ‘Elegies’, ‘Epithalamions’. ‘Satyres’, and ‘Letters’, ‘Divine Poems’, etc. Two poems...
£4500
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DONNE, John.
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, and severall Steps in my Sicknes ...
London, Printed for Thomas Jones … 1627.
Third (and last lifetime) edition of Donne’s most familiar prose work, composed during his convalescence in 1623–4 from the ‘spotted Feaver’ which nearly killed him. It consists of twenty-three ‘Stationes, sive Periodi in Morbo’, each comprising a meditation, expostulation, and prayer.
£13500
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DONOUGHUE, A.
An Essay on the Passions: with other Poems … Shrewsbury: Printed by T. Wood … for P. Owen … Welshpool; sold...
Welshpool; sold by Champante and Whitrow … London, and all the Booksellers in Shrewsbury. 1799.
First edition. ‘I have felt as many woes as ever tore the bosom of a Petrarch’, writes the author in the Preface, ‘and have struggled with as many penurious calamities as ever agonized the soul of a Chatterton; will not then a generous public pardon my presumption, when informed, that I woke my...
£325
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[DOVES PRESS.]
Pervigilium Veneris.
Hammersmith, ‘printed by T.J. Cobden-Sanderson at the Doves Press,’ 1910.
One of 150 copies on paper of the elusive Pervigilium Veneris, in the original Doves Bindery vellum, ‘a triumph of simplicity and restraint’ (Tidcombe).
£950
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DRYDEN, John.
Eleonora: a Panegyrical Poem: dedicated to the Memory of the late Countess of Abingdon …
London: Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1692.
First edition. The countess had died in May 1691, but ‘betwixt ill health, some business, and many troubles’, publication of this eulogy was delayed until March 1692 (as the Lutrell copy is dated). The poem, commissioned by the Earl of Abingdon, praises the piety and charity of its subject, its somewhat...
£275
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DRYDEN, John.
Religio Laici or a Layman’s Faith. A Poem …
London, Printed for Jacob Tonson … 1683.
First edition, second issue (with a few minor corrections; Macdonald located only two copies of the first): ‘a defence of the Anglican position, which shows his singular power of arguing in verse’ (Leslie Stephen, DNB). The inspiration for the poem was the translation of Richard Simon’s Histoire...
£400
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DUNCAN, Raymond.
A small archive of printed and manuscript material relating to, and printed by, the dancer and poet Raymond Duncan.
Paris, 1940s to 1970s.
The present archive includes:
£1500
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[DUPONT DE NEMOURS, Pierre-Samuel and Konrad Engelbert OELSNER].
Notice sur la vie et les écrits de M. Joël Barlow, Ministre...
[Paris]: Smith [?for the author], 1813.
First edition, limited to 500 copies; an association copy of this eulogy to America's National poet, Joel Barlow, gifted by his widow to Count Rumford. American businessman, diplomat, and poet Joel Barlow (1754–1812) studied at Yale, where he developed interests in poetry, moral and political...
£600
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D’URFEY, Thomas.
Wit and Mirth: or Pills to purge Melancholy; being a Collection of the best merry Ballads and Songs, old and...
London: Printed by W. Pearson, for J. Tonson ... 1719 [-20].
The first complete edition, second issue of volumes I-V with titles altered to the familiar Wit and Mirth from Songs Compleat, 1719 (a change at the time of the publication in 1720 of volume VI, which is always entitled Wit and Mirth).
£2250
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D’URFEY, Thomas.
The Progress of Honesty: or, a View of a Court and City. A Pindarique Poem …
London: Printed for Joseph Hindmarsh … 1681.
First edition of an allegorical poem inspired, like Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel, by the Exclusion Crisis of 1681. ‘Honesty’ describes to ‘Error’, ‘Faction’ and ‘Beauty’ the court of Charles II (‘Titus the Second … the joy of human kind’), and the malign effects of Treason...
£300
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[D’URFEY, Thomas].
Butler’s Ghost: or Hudibras. The Fourth Part. With Reflections upon these Times …
London, Printed for Joseph Hindmarsh … 1682.
First edition of D’Urfey’s sequel to Samuel Butler’s burlesque poem Hudibras, the most celebrated satire of the seventeenth century, published in three parts in 1663-78. Written in hudibrastic metre, the two cantos of Butler’s Ghost follow the progress of Butler’s eponymous hero from an interrupted...
£325